A teenager pointed out to his friend on the corner: It’s spelled out on the truck, Bomb squad!
Cops taped off a section of Broadway between 21st and 23rd streets by the Bel-Aire Diner this afternoon after a bomb scare. There were NYPD cars and trucks, ambulances and I even saw a state trooper. And there was the bomb squad.
Turned out, according to the New York Post, the suspicious object was a pot of spaghetti.
Continue reading “Spaghetti crime scene shuts down Broadway near 21st Street”
For months I watched men lay bricks at 12-02 37th Avenue, creating a gray block building in the middle of the Ravenswood industrial business zone. It is so gray and blocky it looked like they were building a castle or a fort. Now with the exterior done, the building is totally more flamboyant at night, its surface illuminated by blue lights, giving it a jazzy, almost night-club like appearance in the industrial area. Most of the buildings that have gone up in the zone lately are hotels. I’m not sure yet if this is a hotel. And guess what, this is also a hotel! Of course it is. It took me a minute to call the wrong architect to find I had the wrong address and wrong paperwork to find a proper link explaining. And that architect? Also building a hotel in the Ravenswood IBZ (at 11-02 37th Ave.) Of course. ***Another update: Google Maps has this place listed as Hotel Nirvana! Well, nevermind. I like the way New York YIMBY described the 12-02 37th Ave development plan 2.5 years ago:
“The development would rise 100 feet into the air on a vacant lot between 12th and 13th Streets, in a sleepy commercial no-man’s land near Ravenswood Generating Station and the Roosevelt Island Bridge… In fact, it seems like an odd place for a hotel. The surrounding blocks are dotted with low-slung warehouses, two-family homes, and the large Ravenwood Houses public housing project.”
But we know now that the Ravenswood IBZ, intended to preserve industrial business space, is a small forest of hotels surrounded by the tall grass of warehouses and small factories. So anyway, this hotel definitely has a stubby shape in comparison to the others. I’ll just say it again. It’s a gray block thing. But at night, that’s when it lets its freak flag fly.
(This post was adjusted to conform to learned information.)
Continue reading “New gray block building shines blue in the night”
Rep. Carolyn Maloney has a Democratic midterm primary challenger who just got caught saying apparently suggestive comments on social media about McKayla Maroney, a champion Olympic gymnast who was underage at the time in 2012. I know, Maroney, Maloney? TBH, I read his Facebook post a few times and don’t get it. Is that Indiana humor? The timing is awkward I guess because Maroney has recently spoken out about being sexually abused as a teen. Politico reported a month ago that the challenger, Suraj Patel, a 34 year-old former Obama campaign staffer (or something, here’s his LinkedIn) who lives in the East Village, had a war chest comparable to Maloney’s. Politico notes, “Patel’s campaign strategists point out the district has been redrawn since 2010 to include the younger, hipper Brooklyn neighborhoods of Greenpoint and Williamsburg.” Some case for descriptive representation. The area was actually the 14th district until 2013 when it became the 12th. It stretched a bit to includes Greenpoint and Williamsburg. 
A few notes:
cornerofastoria.com 