Maybe You Like The Idea Of Your Children Attending A School In The Flightpath Of LaGuardia Airport*

Opposition is organizing in and around Queens’ Iron Triangle in the next great eminent domain battle:

. . . 10 businesses have taken a stand and formed the Willets Point Industry and Realty Association, intent on fighting tooth and nail for their rights.

The City plans to relocate all the businesses from the area adjacent to Shea Stadium and start fresh with 5,500 residential units, 1.7 million square feet of retail and entertainment space, nearly 1 million square feet of office and convention center space, a 650-pupil school, a hotel, a park and eight acres of green space.

This is the last thing Dan Feinstein, of Feinstein Steel Works, wants to see happen.

“We’ll use every means under the law to protect ourselves,” he said. “We’ll do whatever we have to, to make sure the city doesn’t screw us.”

This City has said on record that it is looking out for the Willets Point businesses and is in negotiations to relocate them. However, Daniel Sambucci Jr., of Sambucci Bros. Salvage Yards, said this is misleading.

“We’ve had meetings and they’ve shown me properties for $40 million,” he said. “But the city doesn’t own the property and they don’t know how they’re going to get it.”

Sambucci said he is worried there is not enough property in the city zoned for heavy industrial to accommodate all the businesses.

“They don’t have a final development plan, a developer — they don’t know how much it’s going to cost and they don’t know where they can move us,” he said.

. . .

In 1991, a study conducted by the City’s Economic Development Corporation found Willets Point would flourish once sewers and basic services were provided, however, this has yet to happen.

“This place would look completely different by now if they had done what the study suggested,” Dan Scully, of Tully Environmental, said. “But [former Borough President] Claire Shulman ignored it.”

Anthony J. Fodera, president Fodera Foods, said the problems of Willets Point is a story of purposeful neglect.

“We call the police or 311 and once we tell them were we are they say ‘oh you’re in that area,’ and never come,” he said.

Feinstein said the business owners are not so stubborn that they would impede the public good but the redevelopment plans do not serve the public good more than his company does.

“If they were planning on building an airport or needed a state highway here, we’re not happy but we understand,” he said. “But don’t say you don’t like my house and your friend’s going to build another one.”

*But most parents don’t — and that’s saying nothing of the idea of staying at a hotel in the flightpath, or attending a concert in the flightpath (is any soundproofing that good?), much less actually living in the flightpath.

Backstory: “Trendy” Willets Point?; Willets Point Junkyards Threatened!; If By “Vibrant And Attractive New Urban Community” You Mean A Superfund Site In A Flood Plain In The Flight Path To LaGuardia, Then I’m Right There With Ya!; First You Tap That Ass, Then You Tax It; Don’t Worry — That’s Just 20 Minutes Of War In Iraq.

Location Scout: Iron Triangle.

On Applying The Broken Windows Theory Of Policing To The Mister Softee Jingle Crackdown

Maybe there was a method to the madness after all:

A Mister Softee driver whose jingle was so irritating that it even caught the attention of Mayor Michael Bloomberg was arrested for allegedly dishing out a lot more than ice cream, police confirmed.

Authorities said an undercover narcotics sting led to the arrest of a Mister Softee driver on Oct. 6, for allegedly selling cocaine and marijuana out of his truck at Bowne Park. Police did not release the name of the alleged dealer, but said they were led to the ice-cream truck driver after several residents of the area complained he had been loudly and incessantly blasting his jingle to the ire of the neighborhood.

. . .

Following the arrest, children in Bowne Park were granted an unusual treat. Because the truck was impounded, police doled out free ice cream to avoid being left with a melted mess in the police lot.

Earlier: How About The Sweet Sound Of My Fist Hitting . . . Wait, Was That Out Loud?

New York, In Its Gluttonous Quest To Provide Its Citizenry With Anything And Everything Anyone Could Possibly Desire, Even Offers 4H Club

So what does the Post do? They go with a lede that the neither the principal nor PTA will be able to photocopy and send around. Real thoughtful:

“Hoe” is not an insult at John Bowne HS in Queens — it’s a learning tool.

That’s because the 2,900-student Flushing school hosts the Department of Education’s sole agricultural program — with a 3.7-acre farm, barnyard animals and all — which made history yesterday by serving student-harvested crops on the lunch menu.

Yes, the five vegetables in the veggie wrap, the basil in the pesto sauce and the cherry tomatoes in the pasta dish were all homegrown, shipped hundreds of feet, not miles.

“It’s just unbelievable. I didn’t know it would be real hands-on stuff,” said senior Sasha Ford, 17, one of the 540 students who manage the farm.

“You get to plant the stuff, grow, harvest and sell them, and it makes people happy to buy them.”

Students spend two of their four years working year-round on the farm, which in addition to producing apples, raspberries and collard greens is also home to chickens, goats and alpacas.

Spent Ten Years In Long Island City And Neither CVS Nor Gristedes’ Felt Any Pity . . . We Carried Groceries From Everywhere! The Bodega’s Prices, They Were Never Fair!

Only in New York will thousands of “settlers” “homestead” a “neighborhood” years before even basic infrastructure needs are met:

The settlers of a neighborhood called Queens West do not exactly have to plow the earth for their sustenance, but they do have to lug their groceries in from Manhattan or Brooklyn, often on crowded subway cars. Many just buy their groceries online.

There is no supermarket in Queens West, the name used by real estate agents and residents of this luxury community rising in the borough’s Hunters Point section, and the selection at nearby convenience stores is limited and pricey.

So in an oft-repeated daily ritual, a white truck stamped with a FreshDirect logo arrives at the doorstep of a high-rise building. A deliveryman hops out to unload box upon box of veggies, cold cuts, cereal and more. The truck is then off to the next multimillion-dollar high-rise.

This fading industrial sector may be experiencing a renewed vitality because of its perch across the East River from Midtown, but its renaissance is at a quirky phase: The influx of residents is outpacing the goods and services that make a neighborhood. It is a car without an engine, a cup of ramen noodles awaiting a splash of hot water.

FreshDirect, the online grocery delivery company whose headquarters are near Queens West, has therefore become essential since it began service to the community in August 2005. But the community’s point-and-click culture faces a drastic — and for some, welcome — change early next year.

Rockrose Development Corporation, one of the major developers in the area, recently signed an agreement with the Amish Market to open a 21,000-square-foot store on the ground floor of one of its buildings. The supermarket, along with a Duane Reade drugstore, is expected to open early next year, signs that Queens West could be maturing from a settlement to a community.

Scoliosis Sufferer And Hanna-Barbera Aficionado Detained Following “Misunderstanding”

Not sure what Fred Flintstone has to do with it but whatever:

A troubled student wearing a Fred Flintstone mask and carrying a .50-caliber rifle was arrested at St. John’s University in Queens yesterday afternoon, prompting the authorities to lock down the campus for three hours while they searched for a possible second gunman, the police said.

The student, Omeash Hiraman, a 22-year-old freshman, was walking through the campus carrying a black plastic bag with the gun’s barrel sticking out of it when a campus security guard approached him and grabbed at the weapon, police said.

A struggle followed, and another student, Chris Benson, came by and helped subdue Mr. Hiraman. Mr. Benson and campus security guards restrained him until the police arrived.

The police later determined there was no second gunman. There were no injuries.

The police said Mr. Hiraman’s gun contained one round of black powder-charge ammunition. His lawyer, Anthony J. Colleluori, described the gun as “kind of like a Dick Cheney hunting rifle.” Charges are pending, the police said.

Mr. Colleluori said Mr. Hiraman had graduated from Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan and enrolled at Cornell University, then transferred to St. John’s, a school he “happens to love.” He said his client was “very tired, he’s confused,” and surprised to hear that his arrest had caused an uproar on the campus.

“He’s not a person who would walk into Columbine and shoot people up,” he said.

Mr. Hiraman’s father, Pat, said his son had recently undergone surgery for scoliosis and may have been reacting to medications. “We believe this is a misunderstanding,” he said.

Then there’s the report in the Cornell Daily Sun (where the suspect was enrolled) quoting a former roommate and Stuyvesant grad who “totally saw it coming.”

Update: Who Was That Mask, Man?; result inconclusive.