Scofflaws!

The question is whether those who offer credit — who these days seem to have little problems extending it to virtually anyone — have a problem with your overdue library book:

Eleven years ago, the Queens Library system, the largest in the nation by circulation, hired a professional enforcer to collect the 25-cents-a-day late fines as well as missing library materials from books to DVDs to rare musical scores.

The gambit has paid off handsomely. The haul so far: $11.4 million, about half of that in fines. That’s a lot of quarters.

. . .

It works. About 70 percent of the people contacted by the company [Unique Management Services] (who, in Queens, have ignored or missed four notices from the library) return some of their overdue materials or pay part of their fines.

“Once reported, this adverse information can stay on your record for seven years!” declares one of the company’s standard letters, which goes on to warn that car dealers, department stores and banks may learn of the library users’ misdeeds. “Why allow this to happen?”

Rabbi Avrohom Sebrow of Far Rockaway said he was flabbergasted when it happened to him.

As a child in Forest Hills, Rabbi Sebrow said, he loved to visit his local branch, and he grew up to be an enthusiastic library patron. He is a teacher at a yeshiva, where instilling reverence for texts and scholarship is central to his calling. Sometimes, like many library patrons, he is late in returning a book, he admitted in a recent interview, but he said he always paid his fines.

In 2005, Rabbi Sebrow said, he was overwhelmed after the birth of twin daughters and found himself six months overdue on materials he had checked out from the North Forest Park branch in Forest Hills. He cannot remember exactly what was late, but he thinks that several CDs were involved. He received a letter from Unique Management, which also uses the name Unique National Collections, demanding $295.40 — the cost of replacing the materials, plus $66 in late fees.

“I figured, ‘I’ll take care of it eventually,'” Rabbi Sebrow said. He did not believe the section of the letter that threatened to report him to credit agencies. “I thought it was a complete empty threat,” he said.

But when he applied for a mortgage and a credit card, he discovered that the oversight had blemished his credit record.

Zip Codes As The New Status Symbol

Glendale, Queens 90210:

Residents of the western Queens neighborhood, which shares the 11385 zip code with nearby Ridgewood, have been longing for five digits to call their own. But postal officials insist the move would be too costly and confusing.

The U.S. Postal Service district manager, who approves new Queens zips, said ina statement that adding more codes canadversely affect mail service and addconsiderable administrative and operational costs.

The official, Lily Jung Burton, also shot down the Glendale code because the Postal Service assigns zips only when there would be an improvement in service and not solely to provide community identity.

Still, Glendale activists vow to continue their push. They argue that the area, which has its own library and community groups, merits unique numbers on letters and packages, too.

Every other area has its own zip code, said Dorie Figliola, a longtime resident who belongs to the Glendale Civic Association. “It’s very unfair. . . . We’re asking for what should be rightly ours,” Figliola said.

Earlier on the subject of zip code envy: Sound Smart And Start Talking Up Right Now The “Rising Political Influence Of 10065”.

Location Scout: Glendale.

You Want To See Fancified Exposed Brick And High Ceilings Where There Is Only Laminate Flooring; Who’s Got Scoreboard Now?

May Queens never lose its charm. A maligned rehab earns top honors from the Chamber of Commerce:

Some people looked at an unused former Eagle Electric Company factory at 19-19 24th Ave., Astoria as nothing more than a derelict shell. Joseph Pistilli, president of Pistilli Realty, saw the building’s potential. Where there was once an empty shell of a factory now stands a residence boasting 186 spacious co-operative apartments, served by a 24-hour concierge and offering spectacular views of the East River, Astoria Park and the Manhattan skyline, with prices starting in the mid- $200,000 range.

The Queens Chamber of Commerce honors Pistilli’s perspicacity and drive at its 95th annual Building Awards dinner this year. Pistilli Riverview East is one of seven buildings deemed winners in the Rehab category, sharing the honor with a single-family residence, a bank branch office, a senior adult center, a branch of the Queens Borough Public Library, an MTA subway maintenance shop and car washing facility and the Visitor and Administration Center at the Queens Botanical Garden.

(Laminate flooring.)

Makes You Want To Boot, To Boot

The obvious thought — look for the employee missing a foot — failed to find a match when it came to this gruesome discovery:

A Con Ed diver vacuuming out an electrical power bay at the utility’s Astoria plant on November 21 found a human foot inside a worker’s boot, police said.

An agency spokesperson said the diver was cleaning out the bottom of a bay at Shore Boulevard and 20th Avenue at about 10:30 a.m., when he was shocked to find the boot- with a foot in it.

“Something jammed the vacuum,” police sources said. “The diver picked up the item and put it in a salvage bag. When he surfaced and looked into the bag, he saw the boot. When he looked inside the boot he saw the foot. The guy was more than a little shaken up.”

. . .

Police sources said a check of accident and other incident reports at the Astoria plant over the past 10 years failed to provide any leads to investigators probing the incident.

I Guess This Also Means Plans For The Methadone Clinic Are On The Back Burner?

Is Long Island City big for its britches? How about just big and it bitches? Battery Park City on the East River is starting to get picky about who it wants in the neighborhood:

A plan to build a six-story grad school dormitory and a 13-story residential tower across from the massive Queens West development in Hunters Point is meeting with stiff opposition from the local community board.

This month, the land use committee of Queens Community Board 2 unanimously voted to reject a Board of Standards and Appeals variance application for the dorm, which would house 220 CUNY Graduate School students, and the apartment tower, with a planned 169 units and ground floor retail.

“Dormitory housing in itself is transient housing at its best and offers no stability to the community. We believe that it is a detriment to the growth of Hunters Point,” said Board 2 Chairman Joseph Conley in a letter to the BSA.

But Howard Goldman, attorney for O’Connor Capital, the developer, said it is the dorm that is driving the project, which is slated to be located on 47th Ave. at Fifth St.

“Like many other institutions in the city, they [CUNY Graduate School] have a need for affordable housing for their graduate students,” he said.

The site, said Goldman, “seems like a good candidate because it is just across the river [from the Manhattan-based grad school] and relatively accessible by subway.”

Saying that he understood the community board’s “concerns about the size and density of the project,” nevertheless, the attorney said, the project’s neighbors are much bigger.

“The project is basically across the street from Queens West, where you have 30- to 40-story towers, and is one block south of a proposed high-rise development, Anable Basin, that has been in discussion for a couple years now,” he said.