It’s A Shame Because “Deuce Alley” Had Such A Nice Ring To It

And what’s more, it leaves open the issue of where exactly we are supposed to relieve ourselves:

Astoria Walk, an alleyway connecting the neighborhood’s busy commercial strip on 31st Street to a Key Food parking lot, was recently given a $300,000 makeover by city-based Jenel Management. The company cleaned up the site and now rents space to six vendors, who sell sunglasses, flowers and other products at their kiosks, City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D−Astoria) said.

The walk is located between an AT&T store and a Subway chain restaurant on 31st Street.

“It’s been an eyesore and a nose-sore for as long as I can remember,” Vallone said of the alleyway. “People used it as a bathroom. It was graffiti-strewn and people dumped garbage there.”

But Jenel Management white-washed the walls of the strip, added a newly paved brick road and provided space for the colorful kiosks which now reside there. The management company is currently seeking more vendors for the site, Vallone said.

Incomplete Jingle Leads To Company’s Demise

There was always something about “one eight-hundred M-A-T-T-R-E-S” that made you ponder what exactly the last “S” stood for and which also made you sort of forget to actually call in the end:

Once a major borough success story, Long Island City’s 1-800 Mattress has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, according to papers filed with the federal bankruptcy court.

Dial-a-Mattress Operating Corporation, which operates 1-800 Mattress, filed for bankruptcy on March 17. The company, which has its headquarters in Long Island City, was founded more than 30 years ago in Jamaica by Ecuadorian native Napoleon Barragan. On March 23, Dial-a-Mattress International Ltd. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, according to papers filed with the federal bankruptcy court.

At least we now know that the company wasn’t also behind the bed bug problem, too, like people have speculated in the past about other businesses.

If This Were Law & Order, It Might Pop Up During The Third Act Of The First Half Hour, Just Before Sam Waterston’s Office Got The Case

The question is whether the arrow shooter is still on the loose:

Cops were searching Tuesday night for the archer who shot an arrow that nearly hit a Queens father as he carried out the trash.

Finally, Some Good News

Though I’m always upset when I see anthropomorphized food demanding that they be drenched in condiments and eaten, this is hometown talent we’re talking about:

A talented artist at P.S. 20 The Bowne School in Flushing has made it past roughly 45,000 budding Rembrandts to be one of only 36 finalists in a national design contest for food giant H.J. Heinz Company, featuring cash and other prizes for the winners and their schools.

The company had a saucy idea — the “Heinz Ketchup Creativity Contest” for school kids from first grade to high school seniors to design new artwork for single-serving packets of Heinz Ketchup.

Of the multitude of entries just from New York, Melissa Rueda, a student at the school located at 142-30 Barclay Avenue in Flushing, is one of three fifth-grade finalists.

Her proposed product art shows a smiling bottle of the name-brand ketchup, being held aloft by a crowd of happy french fries.

Grandstanding Studies Cost City Taxpayers Thousands

Oh sorry, I guess the real headline was “No. 7 shutdown cost city commuters $25M: Gioia”:

New Yorkers lost more than $25 million because of service cuts to the No. 7 subway line during an eight-week period in January and February, according to the preliminary results of a study City Councilman Eric Gioia’s (D−Sunnyside) office conducted.

Gioia said the shutdown of the No. 7 line on weekends from Times Square and Queensborough Plaza from January to early March cost commuters $25.9 million and at least 950,000 hours because of extra travel time over eight weeks.

“New Yorkers not only lose their time, but their hard-earned money when they have their commutes interrupted by service delays,” Gioia said. “The subway lines are the lifeline for most New Yorkers — when the trains don’t run, New Yorkers suffer. The MTA needs to take tangible steps towards making sure that when there are service interruptions, they have a minimal effect on New Yorkers.”

Using a formula developed by Princeton University economist Alan Krueger, the study analyzed how much money detours, additional trip segments and increased wait times were costing the average rider of the No. 7 subway line, which runs from Manhattan to Flushing through northern Queens.

Look, shutting down the 7 between Times Square and Queensboro Plaza on the weekend certainly sucks, and I’m sure there is a “cost” to making the commute longer, though it’s obviously minimized on the weekend, but the other thing that sucks is neglecting infrastructure, and, you know, getting delayed at more inopportune times. But Councilmember Gioia got a lot of mileage out of this eminently grandstandable issue (MTA bad! Beleaguered outer-borough residents!) and there’s no reason to stop even after the delays are over . . .