By Celia Bernhardt | cbernhardt@queensledger.com

E&J Cards and Gifts is a community institution in Ridgewood. For over fifty years, the store’s shelves have been lined with what seems like an infinitely diverse array of tchotskeys, gifts and hyper-specific cards. But its owners, Valarie and Alan Wornian, are getting ready to close up shop by the end of February. 

Valarie Wornian says she’s looking forward to her retirement — spending more time with her six grandchildren and no longer working long hours as the retail business gets tougher and tougher. But that doesn’t make the goodbyes any easier. 

“It’s really so emotional. A rollercoaster of emotions. […] I didn’t understand how many lives we’ve touched. You know it, but…” Wornian trails off mid-sentence, tears welling in her eyes, as customers poke around the store. “It’s been hard.”

A steady stream of customers come through the store on Monday morning, some who just read the news for the first time that day. 

“I just died a little bit,” one customer says, pointing to the poster on the door announcing E&J’s closure as he walks up to Wornian. Wornian leans in to hug him. 

“51 years. I think we’ve earned it,” she says. 

“Yeah. For me, it’s bittersweet,” the customer says. “This was my go-to place.” 

Wornian’s family has been in business in Ridgewood, in one way or another, for over a century. Her grandmother, born in 1900, spent her childhood pushing a fish cart down Myrtle Avenue on the very block that E&J now sits on. Wornian also remembers her grandmother’s stories about operating a few bars in the neighborhood with her husband before the Prohibition crackdowns.

“She remembers the cops coming through the house that I grew up in on Linden — between Fresh Pond and Traffic [Avenue] — the cops would come at night, bang on the back windows and come in to see if they had any liquor,” Wornian recounts. 

Alan Wornian’s parents, meanwhile, owned a soda fountain and candy store in Glendale—a tough business with long hours, selling cigarettes and newspapers at six in the morning for early risers and serving banana splits until midnight for couples on dates. 

Valarie and Alan were still dating when E&J’S first storefront became available. To scope it out, the two would stand outside and count the number of people who passed by the building, seeing if it was a viable place to start a business. 

All these years later, it’s clear they made a good choice. 

“We always had family helping us,” Wornian explains. “Nieces, nephews, grandsons, neighborhood kids. Now I have a boy that works with us whose father worked with us. We’ve gone through the generations, you know? I mean, we’ve really grown up here. We were teenagers when we [started].”

Many of the store’s employees throughout the years have gone on to rise the ranks in managerial positions at large corporations. “My husband jokes that they should’ve paid us to work here,” she laughs. 

After suffering a heart attack in the back room of the store six years ago, Alan has taken up the majority of the remote work involved in running the business while Valarie has worked in the shop most days of the week. She has also sat as Vice President of the Myrtle Avenue Business Improvement District for years, working to keep the neighborhood an enjoyable place to shop. 

Ted Renz, executive director of the BID, said Worian will be sorely missed. “[She] could always be counted on for any task the BID needed.”

The Wornians’ impact on the Ridgewood community can be felt in as many small, unique ways as there are items on their shelves. 

“I have little angels upfront which cancer patients have actually told me helped them, because they held it during their treatments and stuff, and just held on to it and rubbed it,” Wornian says. “Or they look for something for a baby shower — people have told me over the years that it’s really nice when they get a stuffed animal from here and they buy it before, so that the mom has it, and it starts to smell like the mom and then the baby attaches to it better. So those things I try to share with the customers… it means more than just a stuffed animal.”

Sharing tips, swapping recipes for Thanksgiving or the Super Bowl, giving local recommendations to newcomers or just spending time talking together — all these things can make customers feel like family, Wornian says. 

“Some people come for lotto four or five times a day — they don’t need lotto. They just really want to come talk.” 

Later, Wornian points out a case of addiction recovery medallions behind the check-out counter, placed next to related gifts and tchotskeys. She points out the “serenity rocks,” small stones with wise sayings engraved on them, as something she recommends as a gift for those in recovery. 

“I try to find things that speak to what they’re looking for,” Worian says. “So, you know, ‘Change, one day into today.’ That’s meaningful. I have to think when I’m buying things: ‘This will help.’ and then I try to also carry it in Spanish.”

Wornian is interested in the possibility of getting landmark status for the store in order to create some kind of public memory of its impact. 

“A recording of everything that’s happened here, of what we’ve done,” Wornian says. “It just came to mind for me—that would be awfully nice if our history would be marked down.” 

Another customer stops by on her way out to chat with Wornian. Stella Sinclair, a 61-year-old occupational therapist from North Richmond Hill, often visits E&J’s to purchase puzzles for the children with special needs who she works with. 

‘I’ll really miss this store,” Sinclair says. “It’s an icon of Ridgewood…beautiful, personable. You feel like you are at home.”

E&J’s items will be on sale until their last day in business, Feb. 29. Until then, patrons can come in for a good deal, a chat, and to sign a huge retirement card that yet another devoted customer left for the Wornians. 

By Celia Bernhardt | cbernhardt@queensledger.com

Garbage backed up to the fourth floor in a trash shoot, festering in the summer heat. Inconsistent heat and hot water in the dead of winter. Rats and roaches blanketing the laundry room floor. 

These are some of the conditions lawyers say tenants have lived through in recent years at 84-53 Dana Court, a 37-unit building sitting on the edge of Middle Village and Rego Park. In his annual Worst Landlord Watchlist released mid-December, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams named Dana Court the #1 worst building in Queens—for the second year in a row. 

List rankings for buildings are calculated based on the average number of open HPD violations per month throughout the year. Dana Court’s 2023 average—the highest in Queens—was 457.

“It’s been hell for tenants. This has been traumatizing,” Tenant A, who requested to remain anonymous due to fear of retaliation, said about the past three years.

Until a foreclosure over the summer, the building was owned by Daniel Ohebshalom (who sometimes goes by the name Dan Shalom) by way of a limited liability company named Highpoint Associates VI. Ohebshalom is one member of an infamous real estate family whose profile includes Empire Management. 

The Public Advocate’s watchlist lists Jonathan Santana as the former landlord of 84-53 Dana Court. But it includes a clarification that Ohebshalom can be most accurately pinpointed as the former property owner. “Johnathan Santana had been the designated head officer for owner Daniel Ohebshalom, including during the period covered by this list, November 2022–October 2023,” the watchlist’s website reads. “Recently, properties previously in Santana’s name have been re-classified with Daniel Ohebshalom as the officer on record.”

With 3,293 violations across 300 apartments in 15 buildings throughout Queens and Manhattan, the building owner broke his own record for outstanding violations this year, topping the “Worst Landlord” section of the watchlist for the second year in a row. Also listed under Santana/Ohebshalom’s name by the Public Advocate’s watchlist is Queens’ third-worst building: 90-38 170 Street, a 41-unit building in Jamaica that racked up an average of 406 HPD violations. Dana Court’s neighboring property, 63-36 Woodhaven Boulevard, is also listed; that building has three units and an average of 78 violations. In late October, the city won $4 million through three lawsuits against the landlord for tenant harassment and conversion of rent-stabilized units into illegal short-term rentals in his Manhattan buildings. 

In 2021, seven Dana Court tenants began legal proceedings against the then-owners of the property for harassment. Though ultimately settled, that case sparked the beginning of several individual suits and, most recently, one claim collectively filed by 11 tenants alleging that landlords intentionally suppressed tenant organizing. 

On Jan. 22, that anti-organizing suit was brought to a close through a settlement—likely marking the end, for now, of legal face-offs between Ohebshalom and Dana Court tenants. 

“In my opinion, this is a vindication of the tenants’ claims,” Queens Legal Services attorney Alex Jacobs, who represented Dana Court tenants, said.

An attorney for Ohebshalom did not respond to a request for comment about the settlement.

“They treated us like animals”

Dana Court was a relatively normal place to call home, according to tenants — until September 2020. That month, a live-in superintendent who had kept the property in decent condition for years was fired. No one was brought on to take his place. Tenants and Jacobs say the sudden absence sparked a steep downhill turn in living conditions.

Left unattended, trash chutes in the building quickly became backed up to the fourth floor, attracting rats and roaches. 

“For almost a year, the trash was left festering there,” Jacobs said. 

Meanwhile, trash also piled up outside in the building’s courtyard, as the garbage cans couldn’t contain the waste of over 30 apartment units. Rats were a constant presence. 

“We had roaches on the walls of the building, all over it,” Tenant A said. “There were flies everywhere.”

As winter crept in, heat and hot water became “on and off at best,” according to Jacobs.

“It’s an old boiler. It doesn’t really register the temperatures, so it automatically shuts off to protect itself,” Jacobs said. “They had to email [Ohebshalom’s tenants relations manager, Robin Ignico] pretty much every week to say ‘The heat is off, the hot water is off.’ She would send a contractor to fix the boiler—they would just flip the switch—and the process would repeat each and every week. That’s how they’ve lived for the past three and a half years.”

“The heat always went out on the coldest, coldest days,” Tenant B, who requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation, said.  

Tenant A recalled purchasing a camping sleeping bag to deal with the cold. “That’s how I could survive,” they said. “Not stay warm, but not die from hypothermia.” 

JustFix, a website that compiles HPD data, states that the building has received 376 heat and hot water 311 complaints over the past three years. In an analysis of 311 data from 2017-2020, Comptroller Brad Lander’s office found that among buildings where tenants lodged at least one heat and hot water complaint, the average annual complaint number per building was 13.5.

Tenant B said that they work night shifts as a security guard, where they had to stay in cold buildings for hours. They recalled many early mornings of coming back home, anticipating the relief of warmth, and instead realizing the heat had shut off. “It took them a few days sometimes for them to give us heat,” they said. 

​​”I wasn’t even able to take a shower. That’s how cold it was,” Tenant B said. “I [didn’t] want to get pneumonia — enough issues going on with my health.”

Tenant B said that despite the conditions, they didn’t have the financial means to simply move out and find another apartment. 

“They treated us like animals, basically,” they said. 

Residents formed a tenants association in the fall of 2020, and later began working with housing rights groups. Queens Legal Services took on the tenants’ legal case in the following spring.

The trash chutes were finally cleared a few months later, in July of 2021, according to Jacobs. 

“Even then, though, there were still rats, mice, and roaches,” he said.

After the trash chutes were cleared, Jacobs and tenants said, the doors to them were locked shut. This made it difficult for some older tenants to dispose of their trash in the walk-up building. 

“If you’re an eighty-year-old lady on the fourth floor, you’ve still got to walk down four flights of stairs every day with your trash,” Jacobs said. 

Other conditions in the building remained largely stagnant. Heat and hot water remained inconsistent. The unit that a superintendent previously lived in was found with a hole in the ceiling and debris carpeting the floor. Some tenants had issues with gas shutting off, leaks in their apartment, rent being withdrawn from their bank accounts at inconsistent times, the behavior of maintenance contractors, and what they described as dismissive or rude communication from Ignico. 

An attorney for Ohebshalom and Ignico declined to comment on tenants’ statements. 

“You know, I’ve been doing this for seven years. I’ve seen a lot of heartbreaking situations; I’ve seen a lot of painful situations,” Jacobs said. “And what these tenants had to go through—not just with conditions, but with the way they were treated—it’s number one. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

Changes of Hands, Cases Closed 

In the Summer of 2023, MacGuire Capital — Ohebshalom’s lender for the property — initiated a Uniform Commercial Code foreclosure on 84-53 Dana Court, along with three other buildings that Ohebshalm had defaulted on loan payments for. Following the foreclosure and auction, Macguire attained ownership of the building’s corporation, Highpoint Associates VI, LLC, functionally becoming Dana Court’s new landlord. The bank hired Bronstein Properties to manage the building.

Since the change, Jacobs’ team has finalized multiple individual settlements for tenants. 

The most recent settlement addressed an argument not about the living conditions themselves, but certain actions Jacobs alleged Ohebshalom and Ignico took to suppress tenant organizing in response to those conditions. 

The petition claims that the two, “or their agents,” conveyed messages to an external tenant organizer that the organizer was not welcome on the premises without their permission. It also alleges that an “agent” — a superintendent in this case, according to Jacobs and tenants — said that management had told them that public flyers for the building’s tenants association were prohibited.

The Queens Ledger obtained a video of the superintendent holding a poster and engaging in a loud back-and-forth with a tenant. Although it doesn’t visually capture a poster being torn down, The video began with the sound of crumpling paper , and a tenant saying “Please stop taking those off my door.” The superintendent is recorded saying “The landlord told me you’re not allowed” in response.  

Although the court will not rule on the validity of the claims, Jacobs sees the settlement as a win. 

“We know that Robin Ignico and Dan Shalom are not shy about litigating and seemingly have infinite energy to blame tenants for the horrors that Robin and Dan unleashed upon their tenants and New York City,” Jacobs wrote in an email to the Ledger. “But here, our clients held their feet to their fire and Robin and Dan not only lost their building, they backed down from our litigation.”

Moving Forward

Under the bank’s ownership, many of the most acute conditions in the building have largely subsided. Interruptions to heat and hot water have been less common; repairs throughout the building have been ongoing. The number of open HPD violations sat at 287 at press time. In mid-January, the trash chute was finally opened for use again. 

Still, some tenants express frustration with what they see as shoddy repairs, or repairs they see as among the most urgently needed still not being done.

“Bronstein’s doing an okay job,” Tenant B said. “But they’re not fixing the roof, or the laundry room that we’re supposed to have…there’s a lot of things wrong here still.”

Tenant C, who requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation, still lives with a large crack between the kitchen sink and wall in their apartment. They said the opening used to contribute to a cockroach issue in the apartment, which has subsided in recent months.

“It’s disgusting,” Tenant C said. 

Bronstein told the Queens Ledger that they’ve hired a team of staff to work exclusively on the property. They listed scaffolding safety, building security, and fire code corrections as among the priorities they focused on first in their work on the building. 

The future of ownership is another unknown hanging over the building. 

84-53 Dana Court is listed in a property package for sale posted to the real estate website Crexi on Sep. 29, 2023. Bronstein and MacGuire did not respond to inquiries about their plans in regard to selling the property. 

Tenant A said they’re worried about the range of possibilities for what happens next.

“If it gets sold to another landlord, we don’t know what they’re going to do or what’s going to happen,” Tenant A said. 

As for what tenants are hoping for? 

“Myself and other tenants want the building to be livable. We don’t want to be harassed by a super. We want work worked on in our apartments. We want the building to be maintained,” Tenant A said. “We don’t want to feel like the building’s going to collapse on us.”

“I want to have a good—decent, I’m not gonna say good—landlord… So you know, to improve the building,” Tenant B said. “A better property owner.”

By Celia Bernhardt | cbernhardt@queensledger.com

Paul Vallone, a lifelong public servant hailing from a Queens political dynasty, died suddenly of a heart attack on Saturday night. He was 56. 

Mayor Adams called the Deputy Commissioner of Veterans Services and former City Council Member a “true son of Queens.” 

“He upheld a family legacy,” Adams said in a statement. “Throughout his time in office, the blue-collar community he represented knew they had a fighter from the neighborhood representing them in City Hall.”

A moderate Democrat, Vallone represented Queens’ District 19 (now represented by Vickie Paladino) in City Council from 2014-2021, where he also chaired the economic development committee. In his tenure on the council he paid special attention to issues of education, adding a total of 4,500 school seats to the district. He also reinstated the New York City Council’s Merit Scholarship, which awards students up to $350 per semester. 

Vallone led efforts to renovate Flushing’s beloved Bowne Park, which were finally completed this past spring. He also worked to build a new environmental center at Alley Pond Park. Vallone brought in a total of $40 million to Northeast Queens across his eight years in office—more than the district received in the previous nine city budgets together. 

“Throughout his career, Paul was a fierce advocate for his constituents, particularly small businesses,” Tom Grech, CEO of the Queens Chamber of Commerce said in a statement. “He was a constant presence at Queens Chamber events, and our members always knew he was fighting for them at City Hall.”

After three terms in office, Vallone served as the Deputy Commissioner of Veterans Services.

“Paul Vallone was the epitome of a public servant, a true champion for the Northeast Queens communities he passionately served and an unrelenting advocate for military veterans,” Borough President Donovan Richards said in a statement. 

Prior to his career in city government, Vallone worked at his family’s general practice law firm, Vallone & Vallone LLP, founded by his grandfather Charles in 1932. The family’s political power in Queens spans back decades—Charles Vallone served as a judge in the borough, and Paul’s father Peter Vallone as speaker of city council. Paul’s brother Peter Vallone Jr. served on city council and is presently a judge. 

NY-03 Congressional Candidate Tom Suozzi tweeted on Sunday night mourning Vallone’s passing. 

“Just yesterday, Paul ran a three-hour phone bank for me,” Suozzi wrote. “Paul is a great family man, a devoted father, husband, and public servant dedicated to the values he learned from his parents and family. I am so sad to hear about his death.”

Amid the messages of grief and remembrance from fellow public servants throughout the city, many have emphasized Vallone’s devotion to his family and friends. 

“More than anything, Paul was a loving husband to Anna-Maria, a proud father of three incredible children and a loyal friend to everyone who, like me, had the honor of knowing him,” Richards said in a statement.

“Paul didn’t just carry on his family’s immense legacy of service — he personified and embodied it. He inspired me every single day to be a better elected official, but it’s his lessons in friendship, family and fatherhood that I will cherish for the rest of time. Queens is a better borough because of Paul, and I am a better person for having had the privilege of calling him a colleague and a friend.”

Vallone is survived by his wife Anna-Marie, and his three children, Catena, Lea, and Charlie.

Visitation will take place from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 1, at Joseph Farenga and Sons Inc. at 38-08 Ditmars Blvd. in Astoria. Mass will take place on Friday, Feb. 2, from 11 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. at St. Andrew Avelino Catholic Church in Flushing. A cemetery service will follow at Calvary Cemetery in Woodside, from 1 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.

By Celia Bernhardt | cbernhardt@queensledger.com

After doing the rounds at the film festival circuit, Tyrel Hunt’s new film, “The Sound of Southside,” is available for all back at home to watch online.

“I wanted to show a different side of Queens that maybe a lot of people haven’t heard of,” said Hunt of the project.

A tribute to jazz in Jamaica, Queens, the film follows a young man named Maliki finding his path after coming home to the neighborhood as a college grad. Maliki, played by James Ross, embarks on a journey to reopen his late father’s jazz club. Along the way he falls in love with an aspiring actress named Afeni, played by Hunt’s wife Amanda Hunt.  

Hunt, who grew up in Rosedale and now resides in Jamaica, was never much of a jazz kid himself growing up. But working as the director of marketing and communications at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, he was continually exposed to the genre through the organization’s programming. It inspired him to dig into the history and presence of jazz in the neighborhood.

“I wanted to highlight that the community has such a rich jazz history. And I wanted to make this movie because I wanted to make sure that didn’t get displaced,” Hunt said. “And [so] when people look at the community years from now, they’ll still be able to remember that so many great jazz legends have lived in the borough.”

Centering that message in Jamaica, particularly, is important to Hunt, who says that the region is underrepresented in pop culture. “I think it’s a shame because so many great people have come from the community. But I think a lot of times when you see Queens on TV, and in film…it’s the more commercial part of Queens. And when you do see Southeast Queens, it’s usually connected to hip hop.”

Always lurking in the background of the film, driving the plot forward, is the issue of gentrification in Jamaica — something Hunt feels day-in and day-out in the neighborhood.

“A lot of community hotspots that people found value in…just aren’t here anymore, or are leaving,” Hunt said. “One example of that is the Jamaica Multiplex, the movie theater on the corner. Just places like that are staples in the community.

“I think along with that comes people being displaced,” Hunt continued. “People not having anything productive to do, or places to go, or seeing their culture and things like that represented in the community. So that was all a concern for me.” 

Though his primary medium is film, Hunt first wrote the story as a novel during the Covid lockdowns. 

“I had to figure out a way to stay creative,” he explained. “I didn’t think [writing it as a book] would work, because it’s hard to write how music sounds…but I had a lot of time on my hands. And it was really cool. I think the best thing about writing a book is there’s no limitations— compared to film, where you have to think about personnel and budget, all of those things. With the book, I was able to really write a more expansive version of the story.”

But Hunt had always envisioned the story in film; in 2021, he was finally able to make it a reality. 

Hunt shot the film over the course of just two weeks. Every step of the way, the process was a community effort. 

“That was due in part to the fact that we didn’t have any permits,” Hunt said. 

The team still shot a good deal of footage in public spaces, and sometimes in spaces that businesses or organizations lent out in support of the film. “Sound of Southside” characters can be seen making their way down a bustling Jamaica Avenue, walking through Rufus King Park for a peaceful respite, or shopping at the legendary VP Records. 

“It felt very collaborative,” Hunt said. “I think that the rhythm of the film is something that we share with the community.”

As far as casting, Hunt said, “There were a lot of actual jazz musicians who were basically playing themselves in the movie. These are people I’ve met working at JCAL, doing these jazz events, and just kind of being in the community.” 

One particularly momentous scene near the end of the film, depicting a performance and a room packed with listeners, was shot in one of JCAL’s own spaces. The audience in the scene, meanwhile, was composed entirely of people Hunt knew from his own community. 

“They were family, friends,” Hunt said. “It was like a mini-reunion.” 

Even before his professional pursuits, Hunt says he was always exposed to the arts in Rosedale and Jamaica. 

“I was always writing short stories, poetry and all of that stuff. And it was always shaped by my community and my experiences. So I’m grateful for Rosedale and the community for helping me become who I am—and living in Jamaica is kind of an extension of that right now.”

Both Hunt’s film and novel are available to purchase on Amazon Prime. 

 

By Celia Bernhardt | cbernhardt@queensledger.com

Neir’s Tavern, Woodhaven’s historic and beloved local haunt, celebrated four years since the day it was saved from shutting down. 

Crowds packed the cozy space in the evening on Jan. 10 to hear owner Loycent Gordon speak about the history of the tavern’s place in the Woodhaven community, how the business has given back to the neighborhood in recent years, how it was almost lost, and how he hopes to save it—this time, permanently. 

Neir’s Tavern, under one name or another, has been in business for 194 years since its start as a local watering hole near to the Union Race Course horse-racing track. The spot has had many lives as a speakeasy, a ballroom, a bowling alley, and more. Its claims to faim include being the place where Mae West got her start, and featuring prominently in the movie Goodfellas. 

Gordon, who lives in St. Albans, bought the spot in 2009 after hearing it was set to close down. 

“Most people don’t realize restaurants don’t make money,” Gordon said plainly. “It’s a passion-driven business. It’s more passion than profit.”

In January 2020, struggling under soaring rents, Neir’s seemed to be at the end of the line—until Gordon called into an “ask the mayor” segment on WNYC and seized the attention of then-mayor Bill DeBlasio. The former mayor, along with his commissioner of Small Business Services, pressured the landlord to sit down with electeds and Gordon and strike a deal that would keep the business afloat. The two-hour meeting led to a lease extension to keep the doors open until Neir’s 200th year in business.

“Every year, we’re reminded of the things that we almost lost, and we still have an opportunity to do something about it,” Gordon said, reflecting on the night. “We have a second chance.”

Gordon’s plan to take advantage of that second chance, as he explained to the audience, is called the “Road to 200” fund: a multi-pronged effort to bring in revenue and acquire the property once and for all. 

“Neir’s Tavern needs to find a way to actually acquire the building, put it in a foundation, so it’s not profit-driven but more preservation-driven,” Gordon explained. “And that involves a series of people working together with the landlord and Neir’s and preservationists to make that happen before we hit 200 years, because that’s when our lease will expire.

“Essentially, it’s creating opportunities for revenue to come into Neir’s Tavern outside of selling burgers and beer,” Gordon continued. “We’re launching an ambassadors club, which is a premium membership program. And we’re also [selling] merchandise, and we have paid tours that we’re going to offer, and a book that we’re going to release.”

Gordon told the crowd that it was time for the community to work to save Neir’s themselves. “No one is coming,” he said. “What happened on Jan. 10, four years ago today, was because you guys chose yourself and what was important to you.”

Patrons packed the tavern as Gordon spoke, chowing down on burgers, beers, and more. 

Richie Salmon, 69, grew up in Glendale and now lives in Howard Beach. He found Neir’s Tavern by accident on his way home one day, and never stopped coming by. He’s been a regular for years now, and says the place treats him like family. 

“It’s a hometown bar,” Salmon said. “Growing up, this is what I was used to. A place where they embraced you, you got a hug, you got a smile, they knew you, they knew your family’s name.”

Also among the guests was State Senator Joseph Addabbo. 

“This is unique,” Addabbo said. “I mean, we do a lot of stops as elected officials—this is a highlight. Because whenever you get to acknowledge a business like Neir’s and the work that goes into it…this is a special night.”

Gordon said that not all nights are so busy. 

“I just wish it was like this every night,” he said. “But I’m happy that it’s packed tonight because it’s just a testament that, you know, people still do care. They haven’t forgotten. I’m happy about that.”

 

By Celia Bernhardt | cbernhardt@queensledger.com

A small crowd of volunteers stood underneath the scaffolding at 43-09 47th Avenue on Monday morning, listening to updates delivered by Councilmember Julie Won. 

It was the second day where sixth floor residents, displaced by a raging fire in the Sunnyside building in late December, were given time slots to enter their apartments and move out their possessions. With the building under a strict vacate order, it’s also the first time some residents have been able to lay eyes on their unit in weeks. 

Christa Kimlicko Jones, a building resident and volunteer, has no idea when she’ll be able to retrieve her belongings. Her unit was closer to the center of the blaze. 

“We don’t know yet when we’re gonna get access,” Kimlicko Jones said. “We’re told that that area in the center of the building isn’t structurally sound yet, so it’s not safe to be in there.” 

Beyond possessions, Kimlicko Jones is deeply worried about her cat, which she hasn’t been able to find since the fire. 

“It would be nice to have information about when we might be able to get in, or at least see our unit. But we do understand that that is not necessarily up to management,” Kimlicko Jones added. “The lack of information is hard.”

Meanwhile, many of those who have already visited their units have reported that their belongings have been looted. 

After A+E Real Estate Management, the owners of the building, notified some residents that they would have a three-hour window to retrieve their belongings with less than 24 hours notice, Councilmember Won sent out a call for volunteers via X (formerly Twitter). 

“We try to have 10 people for each moving slot of three hours to come and volunteer,” Won said. “And to thank them, I make sure that we get donations from local restaurants and bakeries for breakfast, restaurants for lunch, so that they’re fed.”

Only one or two households will be able to go through the moving process at a time due to the building’s damage, an A+E spokesperson explained. The move-outs will continue on a rolling basis, likely daily. 

Last Thursday was a bumpy start.

“They told all the tenants that there would be professional movers here. It turns out that the professional movers are a cleanup crew. And they didn’t have saran wrap, they didn’t even have proper tape last time,” Won said. “Things were falling out of the boxes.” 

Won added that neither moving trucks or storage units were provided by management—though her office secured a free truck for tenants that cannot cannot afford their own.

“I think there was a little bit of confusion on the ground,” a spokesperson for A+E said. “Now they have sort of a handle on how it’s going, and it seems to be going more smoothly.” 

“It’s going to take a while to do the whole building. They’re prioritizing people who haven’t been in their units yet,” an A+E spokesperson said. “Some folks just don’t know the condition of their unit; they haven’t been in it yet. So they don’t know, am I moving everything? Or is literally everything a soaked or charred mess?”

Leaving Home

As some residents work to salvage what remains of their belongings, many others face a huge transition: Tuesday, Jan. 9 was the deadline for them to move out of hotel rooms that A+E has paid for, and either accept a temporary lease at a vacant A+E apartment or fend for themselves. 

Tenants will pay a similar price for these new units as they did for their Sunnyside apartments, including those who lived in rent-stabilized units. Relocated residents will also receive a furniture stipend; A+E did not disclose the amount. 

Available apartments are concentrated in Kew Gardens or East Harlem—leaving families with deep roots in Sunnyside with an impossible decision. 

“People’s lives are in this neighborhood,” Kimlicko Jones said. “We’ve been there for 20 years, this is our 20th year. But people [have lived here] 40 years, 50 years. It’s one of those kinds of buildings—in addition to people that have been there for just a few months. People’s lives are really in this neighborhood.”

Logistical Issues like commutes to work, childrens’ commute to local schools, and proximity to certain doctors are heavy on some residents’ minds as well. Judy Zangwill, Executive Director of Sunnyside Community Services, remembered the harrowing situations she spoke with residents about in the days right after the fire. 

“One man came up to me and said, you know, ‘My father is on dialysis, we really need a place close to a dialysis center…and we’re gonna run out of money for his medication.’ I mean, it’s things like that we were hearing,” Zangwill said.

Kimlicko Jones and her husband were offered a unit in East Harlem, but have decided not to take it. “We’re just trying to figure it out,” she said. “It’s just too far from our lives.” 

Kimlicko Jones has renter’s insurance, which she says has been a great help as she navigates the aftermath of the fire. Most building residents, according to Councilmember Won, don’t have that. 

“Out of 104 units, about 20 have signed a new temporary lease to move somewhere else,” Won said. “That leaves a very large percentage who are uncertain of where they will go.”

Jan. 9 is—as of press time on Tuesday—the final move-out deadline after an uncertain back-and-forth that played out for weeks. The Red Cross initially footed the bill for hotel rooms, but withdrew on December 27; it seemed at first that this would be the end of hotel accommodations, but then A+E stepped in to cover the cost. Residents and advocates then were told they might have until Jan. 2. Now, Jan. 9 looks like the final decision. 

It’s just one example of a tangle of communication issues and confusion residents and advocates have waded through, as up to 100 households carry out individual communication with A+E representatives. 

Sunnyside Strong

“The hopeful side, or the other side of this, is how kind everyone has been,” Won said, highlighting the presence of volunteers. 

Zangwill expressed the same sentiment. “The community — it was wonderful how they all came together, they’re still coming together,” she said. Zangwill recalled mass donations of clothing in the immediate aftermath of the fire, as well as volunteer efforts to get clothing through the laundry before it was offered to residents. “We’ve been getting multiple phone calls and emails about ‘what can I do [to help]?’”

Sunnyside Community Services launched a GoFundMe after the fire, which has amassed over $114,000 in donations so far. Zangwill explained that SCS will meet and collaborate with displaced tenants to determine the best way to distribute funds across the group. “We’re gonna try to get the funds out as soon as possible,” she said.

“It’s been the most life-changing, traumatic, catastrophic event, it’s totally life-changing…[We’re] just trying to get our feet on the ground. ” Kimlicko Jones said. “But we’re one of over 400 stories. This building is totally vacated right now, and we have over 400 tenants who are trying to find their life.”

“It’s moment to moment, day to day, ups and downs—trying to really focus on positive things,” Kimlicko Jones said. “Sunnyside is an incredible community. Our representatives are incredible.”

 

By Celia Bernhardt | cbernhardt@queensledger.com

Community Board 5 gathered for a full-board meeting last week in Christ the King High School’s cafeteria. Highlights from the meeting included an update about a nearby contaminated site and full-board votes on adult-use retail cannabis license applicants.

Radioactive Contamination Cleanup in Ridgewood

In his District Manager’s report, Gary Giordano called attention to a piece of environmental news in the area: a contaminated site located at 1127 and 1129 Irving Avenue in Ridgewood is set to undergo a demolition and cleanup process this January. 

The site was home to the Wolff-Alport Chemical Company from 1920-1954. The company’s activities involved processing monazite sand, which contains Thorium, a “naturally occurring radioactive substance found in small amounts of rocks, soil, and water” according to the EPA. 

The EPA is set to demolish four buildings on the site and remove all debris, a process that will run from January to late April. “What they’re gonna do to control the dust is they’re gonna keep the area wet down,” Giordano said. “The area is fenced, but they’re not going to tent the area. They think it’s safe enough that they can do what they intend to do.” 

After this phase is completed, the removal of Thorium-contaminated soil will begin. 

“In some areas the contamination of the soil is quite deep, especially under one or more of the buildings,” Giordano said to the board. “Other areas, the contamination may only be four feet down.” 

“Some of it is in the city sewer system,” Giordano added later. “So they’re going to try to flush that out, and whatever they can’t flush out, they’re going to replace the sewer line.” 

The site was added to the EPA’s Superfund National Priorities List in 2014. Now that cleanup is set to begin, Giordano says that the EPA’s communication leaves much to be desired. 

“I don’t think the outreach was too good by the EPA, because they didn’t even contact us directly,” Giordano said, explaining that he found out about the initiation of the cleanup “through the grapevine” instead. 

Giordano called the contamination removal a “slow and expensive process.” 

“The last I know—and I don’t know if the price tag went up—it was $30 million to do this removal,” he said. 

“They do not think that it is a significant risk to the people who are even nearby,” Giordano said. “From what I know, the worst levels of radiation are under the buildings where the work was being done. So they kind of just dumped into a pit in the buildings, they dumped into the city sewer system, and now the department of environmental protection, with your water and sewer charges, has to pay to remediate the sewer problems.”

Later, Chairperson Vincent Arcuri Jr. clarified that the EPA would “keep going till they get rid of it.”

 

Cannabis License Headaches 

Shortly after Giordano’s report, the Liquor License and Cannabis Committee took to the floor. Maryann Lattanzio presented the committee’s recent review of five applicants for adult-use retail cannabis dispensary licenses, inviting the board to vote either for or against the committee’s own decision on each applicant.

Votes were cast between long sidetracks of confusion, questions, and clarifications.

The first applicant, Lattanzio explained, initially came with two proposed locations—64-40 Myrtle Avenue and 71-05 Myrtle Avenue. The committee had voted against the first site on the grounds of its proximity to Saint’s Church. The majority of the board voted to uphold that decision. 

71-05 Myrtle Avenue was next. This location had received a split vote by the committee earlier in the month, with three in opposition on the grounds that it lay close to Forte Prep High School (though whether or not it would be legally too close was unclear). There was confusion about the hypothetical dispensary being at the address which currently houses a gas station and liquor store; then there was confusion about which distance regulation, if any, the location would be in violation of, as board members cited a nearby church and mosque. 

The board’s vote was split approximately two-to-one, with those “for” upholding the committee’s opposition winning the majority. 

66-74 Fresh Pond Road was introduced next. Lattanzio told the board that the committee voted to oppose the location “based on the proximity to Benninger playground.” 

Board Member Carol Benvic-Bradley raised a question in response. “It’d just be helpful, I think, when we’re hearing these proposals for ‘for’ or ‘against,’ if we could cite the specific rule. So, proximity to a playground—is there a certain [distance] that it should be away? And does it fall inside of that requirement or outside of it?”

“To my knowledge, it’s similar to a school in that you shouldn’t be 500 feet from the playground site,” Giordano said. “This is less than that.”

Board Member Diego Leclery spoke next. “It seems to me from having attended one of these meetings that these guidelines are being interpreted quite freely,” he said. “We should be very mindful that if we interpret these rules to include every area that a young person might be near or in, we’re going to make legal cannabis impossible in this city and we’re going to help the proliferation of illegal cannabis.”

Lattanzio also mentioned, later in the discussion, that the applicant neglected to show up to the committee’s meeting or fill out the questionnaire sent to him. 

“It’s very alarming when someone does not respond to the community board’s request,” CB5 Financial Secretary Eric Butkiewicz said. “This is when they’re trying to get something from us, and this is how they’re behaving. When they dont need something from us, think how they’re going to behave towards us.”

After more comments and questions about distance regulations, the board voted to uphold the committee’s recommendation. 

66-33 Fresh Pond Road was up next—the first to have earned a committee stance of “not opposed” through a 3-2 vote earlier in the month. Votes opposed to the location were due to its placement on the same street as Benninger Playground, though it exceeded 500 feet in distance. After some varied discussion, the board voted in favor of the committee’s report. 

78-10 Cypress Avenue followed. Unlike previous sites, this one would be located in a manufacturing zone, farther from residential and community corridors. The applicant earned a unanimous vote of “not opposed” from the committee, which the majority of the board voted to uphold. 

The last location was 55-41 Myrtle Avenue, which the committee opposed based on its under-200 feet proximity to a synagogue.

“We also believe he was selling cannabis illegally, as he had already had the sign put up,” Lattanzio said. “And an armed robbery took place on December 4th at night at that location.” 

Lattanzio went on to say that on the morning of the committee meeting earlier in the month, she passed by the location and saw that the applicant had put up a sign advertising cannabis products—something the state doesn’t allow even after one has obtained a license, much less before. 

“The lawyer didn’t know about the sign being put up,” she said, referencing the applicant and lawyer’s visit to the committee meeting. “He told us he was going to cover it up with black markings, which he didn’t.”

The board voted unanimously for the first time in the night, standing by the committee’s report. 

 

By Celia Bernhardt | cbernhardt@queensledger.com

The MTA unveiled its final proposal for the Queens Bus Network Redesign last week, taking another stab at reconfiguring bus routes in the borough. 

The $30 million dollar plan would cut 10 existing routes, add 15 new ones, and tweak plenty of others. 

Queens residents are more reliant on buses than boroughs with more extensive subway service, like Manhattan and Brooklyn; roughly 800,000 Queens residents board a bus on an average weekday. But riders have had to make do with a bus system with declining on-time performance (a 12 percent decrease from 2014 to 2018) and bus speeds (from nine miles per hour in 2015 to 8.7 miles per hour in 2019). 

MTA efforts to remedy that decline with a full redesign have been in development since 2019. An original draft plan was published in 2020; after a fairly negative reception from the public and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the initiative took a pause. Another draft plan was released in March 2022. It was described by the MTA as a “fresh look” at the redesign, taking direction from the outpouring of feedback in 2020. This newly-released iteration, the Proposed Final Plan, builds on 2022’s feedback. 

A change permeating the design as a whole is increased spacing between bus stops. This would force some riders to walk farther in their daily commute, but the MTA says it should ultimately make the buses faster and more reliable; the plan states that removing one stop saves riders about 20 seconds per trip. The agency also aims to straighten out routes that may have too many twists and turns to create faster, more direct service.

The plan proposes new “rush routes,” designed to pick up residents in the Northeast and Southeast sections of the borough less served by transit and get them to subway stations fast, with fewer and fewer stops as the bus nears its destination. The MTA also highlighted changes to its express lines—one new proposed line, the QM65, would link Laurelton and Rochdale to downtown Manhattan. 

The transit agency kicked off its long road of feedback with a series of closed-door meetings with local stakeholders in different quadrants of the borough. Next, the agency will visit all 14 community boards in Queens, where constituents will be able to speak their minds about the proposed changes.

Andrew Lynch, chief design officer at transit advocacy group QueensLink, expects plenty of pushback. 

“It’s all about subjectivity,” Lynch said. “It’s all about ‘Are you reducing my stop?’ And you’re never going to win that battle…You have to cut something, you have to hurt someone’s commute to help everyone else’s commute.”

Lynch said that the mood among his colleagues in the transit world was generally positive towards the plan. 

“I would say this: we’re relatively happy with where this is. There are always going to be small little changes where you’re like ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ or ‘Why’d they do that?’ that are probably too nitpicky. Because at some point, you just need to pull the bandaid off,” Lynch said.

Early Criticism from Southeast Queens Reps

Southeast Queens representatives have had some angst about the plan thus far. City Council Transportation Committee Chair Selvena Brooks-Powers said at a press conference that she had “serious concerns.” 

“The changes proposed to help streamline and speed up service could also leave many people in my district at a severe disadvantage,” she continued. “Especially with the addition of congestion pricing in the city.” Brooks-Powers did not go into specific complaints at the press conference or in a follow-up statement released on Dec. 12. 

State Senator Leroy Comrie also spoke, floating the idea that Brooks-Powers took issue with additional bus lines in Rosedale.

“We went from one bus line in Rosedale to four bus lines, and that’ll confuse people so she wants to see that cleaned up,” Comrie said. 

Assemblymember Khaleel Anderson said that he also has concerns about how the plan will manifest in Rosedale. 

“More buses sounds good, but I would say that there has to be more coordination on where those buses meet,” Anderson said. He argued that though more bus lines will run through the neighborhood, they won’t enable residents to traverse from one point in Rosedale to another. 

He also decried the alterations to the MTA’s planned Q51 route since its last form in the 2022 New Draft Plan: originally, the proposed route would connect Cambria Heights to Brooklyn’s Gateway Center mall via Lindenwood Boulevard. Now, it stops short at the Rockaway Boulevard A train station in Ozone Park. “You want to connect people to economic centers, to jobs, to resources, and that Q51 bus did,” Anderson said. “It was one of the most exciting, bold ideas that was out in the last plan, and I’m sad that it was taken out.” 

But Anderson’s primary concern is the Rockaways.

“The glaring thing that stands out is that there’s no major changes to any of the routes that leave the Rockaway peninsula,” Anderson said. “When I think about…the hundreds, if not thousands of families we’re getting via the migrant shelter we have in our district—I’m thinking about moving more than the people we have presently on the peninsula.”

Lynch had a similar takeaway. “The Rockaways still have relatively poor east-west transportation,” he said. “The weird thing is that there’s literally no recommendations for change.”

“We need to be bold in Rockaway,” Anderson continued, suggesting a bus from the peninsula to JFK Airport and an extension of the Q52 bus further east.