Raising Weeksville

A cohesive family unit is important, just not at gunpoint:

A Brooklyn man enraged that his ex-girlfriend wouldn’t let him see their infant daughter kidnapped the child at gunpoint Tuesday, police said.

Shawn Fariera, 20, and a friend busted into Melissa Fyffe’s Weeksville apartment about 5:40 p.m., saying they had some clothes for 3-month-old Shamiece, cops and witnesses said.

“He bum-rushed the door,” said Fyffe, 21, who has a protective order against Fariera. “He grabbed her off my mother’s bed. While he had her in his arms, he pulled a small black gun out of his back pocket and put it to my face.”

Fariera’s friend grabbed some baby blankets from the bed, and the duo escaped through a back door in the building, Fyffe said.

All Press Is Good Press . . . And All English Press Is Totally Irrelevant, So Muckrake Away, Sucker!

So I guess Viva New York is chopped liver to this asshat:

The Flamingo is famed in its Queens neighborhood as a place for lonely men to dance with scantily clad beauties for just $2 a song.

But several former dancers at the Jackson Heights night club allege they were treated like virtual slaves — forced to work hundreds of hours a week without pay and to endure abuse and humiliation by the owners.

In a multimillion-dollar lawsuit expected to be filed today, several former dancers, bartenders and waiters contend dance hall owners Edith D’Angelo and her husband, Luis Ruiz, violated labor laws and treated them inhumanely, according to Make the Road New York, a community organization representing the employees.

“[Ruiz] would insult the women by calling us ‘whore’ or ‘prostitute,’ and he would throw drinks and alcohol on our bodies,” a former dancer said in an affidavit obtained by the Daily News.

The dancers also say they were:

Not allowed to sit down, eat or drink water during shifts of 10 or more hours.

Made to change in rooms that were under video surveillance.

Ordered to have bar managers inspect their toilets after each use to make sure they didn’t use too much toilet paper.

Forced to repeat humiliating statements about themselves during meetings, such as, “I am fat and ugly. I am the reason that Flamingo is losing business.”

. . .

Dancers at the Roosevelt Ave. hot spot have to pay the house to work there — $11 each night. They are fined $10 for each half-hour they’re late and are forced to pay $70 if they call in sick, former dancers said.

Each night, the young women dress in different outfits – sometimes only in bikinis or lacy pajamas — and offer to dance salsa, bachata or cumbia with men for $2 a song or $40 an hour.

. . .

Outside the club yesterday, bar manager Aridio Herrera was unapologetic.

“We didn’t do anything wrong,” Herrera, 29, said. “Our customers don’t speak any English, so we don’t care if it’s in the paper.”

A Sociopath On The Loose In Soho

Apparently there is no place for poor old honeylocusts in the new downtown:

The three honeylocust trees on the corner of West Houston Street and West Broadway share their little slice of the city with seven newspaper boxes, four garbage cans, two billboard advertisements for a London vacation, and one Starbucks coffee shop.

The trees have been there for years, in the middle of a sidewalk that is newly widened, but the other day they were not looking good. They had no leaves, a branch was broken on the one in the middle, and all three appeared to have been heavily pruned in their upper reaches.

Still, given the events of the last month, it could be worse: Apparently, someone has been trying to kill these trees.

It seemed strange to Ian Dutton, too, when he was walking past one day a few weeks ago and noticed a layer of rock salt poured, rather neatly, on the dirt at the base of all three trees — but not on the surrounding sidewalk. Mr. Dutton, a pilot who lives in the neighborhood and is a member of the local community board, happens to be a graduate of a class on tree stewardship offered by the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation, and he worried that the heavy rains forecast for the next day would help the salt soak into the soil.

“I was like, ‘I must be crazy,'” Mr. Dutton said Wednesday. “I mean, who would do that?”

. . .

For the next two weeks, nothing much happened. Then, on March 20, Mr. Dutton’s wife, Shea Hovey, passed the trees when she going to the subway and noticed that the salt was back — again, caked around the base of the tree but not on the sidewalk. Another call to the Parks Department brought another cleanup crew, along with increased suspicion that this was not an accident.

. . .

The company that owns the adjacent building said it was not involved and had no information on the matter.

Budget Cuts Run Deep; Administration Even Asks City Council Members To Curtail Funding Of Phantom Community Groups

Budget problems fixed . . . that was painless:

The New York City Council has appropriated millions in taxpayer dollars in recent years to organizations that did not exist, Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn disclosed on Thursday.

The maneuver, in which funds were set aside for fictitious groups like the Coalition of Informed Individuals and Senior Citizens for Equality, allowed Council members to spend the money later on community programs they supported without obtaining the mayor’s approval.

The practice dates to at least 2001 and encompasses the tenures of the previous two speakers, Peter F. Vallone Sr., and Gifford Miller, according to Ms. Quinn.

Since 2001, about $17.4 million has been budgeted for dozens of fake community groups, according to documents provided by Ms. Quinn’s office.

“I was obviously deeply troubled when I found out about this information,” Ms. Quinn said at a news conference on Thursday, after The New York Post reported on the practice. “I had no knowledge of it; I did not know this was the practice. It’s something I believe is completely inappropriate and should not have gone on, and will no longer go on.”

It’s Also Good To Be The Secretary Of The King

Many of the spaces in the downtown Brooklyn “park”-ing lot supposedly occupied by judges for supposed security reasons are actually being used by their secretaries:

It’s not just judges who are parking in the controversial judicial parking lot in a downtown Brooklyn park, the Daily News has learned.

Secretaries, court staffers and judicial hearing officers also are parked inside Columbus Park, a recent Daily News survey found.

Law clerks who chauffeur their judgebosses to work also have nabbed the coveted spots, the News found.

“It certainly shoots a hole in the argument that they need this parking lot for judges’ security,” said Transportation Alternatives spokesman Wiley Norvell of the Civil Court judges’ stance they need to park near the old courthouse next to Borough Hall where they preside over volatile cases. “It’s a job perk.”

The News’ findings came as judges threatened to sue the city over its plans to oust some of the cars from the lot and turn it back into a pedestrian plaza. Work is slated to begin as early as next month.

. . .

In 1999, judges allegedly promised to move their cars to a garage at the new courthouse at 330 Jay St. when it opened in 2005.

But they have more recently argued it is unsafe and inconvenient for judges who preside over divorce and foreclosure cases to park in the new Criminal Court garage and make the six-minute, two-block trek to Civil Court.

“They can’t walk two blocks to a garage, but they all walk to Queen for lunch,” quipped one insider, referring to a well-known Court St. Italian restaurant.

Among The News’ findings from its March 7 review are:

Nearly 40% of the 44 cars — 17 — did not belong to judges.

Three cars belonged to judges’ secretaries.

Another five cars were law clerks’; while two more were driven by high-level courthouse administrators.

Four cars were listed to retired judges now working as judicial hearing officers or court attorney referees.

Two cars belonged to court officers assigned to watch over the lot. One car’s owner could not be identified.

Location Scout: Columbus Park.