4 The QUEE NS Courier • FEBRUARY 11, 2016 for breaking news visit www.qns.com Photo by Robert Stridiron Cops are investigating the murder of a 57-year-old man at this Flushing home on Friday night. Monahan & Fitzgerald opened in 1987. Son charged with fatally beating MONAHAN & FITZGERALD IN BAYSIDE GETS NEW BUILDING OWNERS AFTER 29 YEARS By Alina Suriel [email protected]/@alinangelica This neighborhood bar isn’t going anywhere. The site of Bayside watering hole Monahan & Fitzgerald has been sold, but the bar will remain in the same location. The building was recently sold after the retirement of co-founder Jim Fitzgerald, according to co-founder John Monahan. The Irish bar has been at 214-17 41st Ave. since opening in February 1987. Monahan and Fitzgerald were also formerly owners of the building next door to the bar, where seasonal frozen treat shop Ralph’s Famous Italian Ices is located on the first floor. That site was included in the sale as well. Monahan said the new owner bought the property as an investment and will allow the tavern and Ralph’s to continue operating in their current locations. “The properties were sold, but not the businesses,” Monahan said. “The businesses will be here for a long time to come.” Monahan & Fitzgerald is reportedly under new management, and decision-makers at the saloon have negotiated a lease agreement for the near future, with the intention of securing an even longer commitment from the new owners. “Nothing’s going to change here for a while,” Monahan said, adding that many of his employees have been working at the pub for a number of years. Image courtesy of Google Maps father in Flushing dispute By Robert Pozarycki [email protected]/@robbpoz Police charged a 19-year-old man with fatally beating his father during an argument inside their Flushing home on Feb. 5. Dimitrios Safetis was booked on manslaughter, assault and weapons possession charges in the death of his father, 57-year-old Ioannis Safetis, inside their home on 190th Street near Utopia Parkway in the Auburndale section at about 9:30 p.m. Officers from the 111th Precinct and EMS units responded to the scene after receiving a 911 call about the incident and found Ioannis Safetis unconscious with blunt force trauma to his head and scratches across his face. Paramedics rushed him to NewYork-Presbyterian/ Queens hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Dimitrios Safetis was taken into custody at the scene and brought to the 111th Precinct’s Bayside stationhouse, where he was questioned by detectives and subsequently charged with his father’s death. The investigation is ongoing. Astoria Park bathroom sewage has been leaking into East River since 1930s By Angela Matua [email protected]/@AngelaMatua Parents were dismayed earlier this month when they realized that the bathrooms in Astoria Park’s Charybdis Playground would be closed for a second summer due to plumbing problems. City workers discovered last spring that sewage from the playground and Astoria pool bathrooms had been seeping into the East River since the 1930s, according to Queens Parks Commissioner Dorothy Lewandowski. The discovery was made when construction of a new amphitheater began at the park’s neglected diving pool. Designers working on the project found that pipes from the playground and pool concession were not connected to city pipes, Lewandowski said at the monthly Astoria Parks Alliance meeting on Tuesday. “The pool and playground were built in the 1930s at a time when people were unfortunately not as environmentally conscious as we are now,” a spokesperson for the Parks Department said. The Parks Department brought in portable toilets to Charybdis Playground last summer and will do the same this summer. The new bathrooms are not expected to be completed until 2019. Bathrooms at the pool were fixed to ensure the pool could operate last summer, the spokesperson said. Anthony Liberatoscioli, an Astoria resident and Photo courtesy of Flickr/Bill City workers discovered last spring that sewage from Astoria Park bathrooms have been flowing into the East River. parent who frequents the playground with his daughter, started a petition earlier last month to request that the Parks Department quickly reopen the bathrooms. “Clearly, this is a serious and environmentally horrifying problem,” he wrote on the petition page. “We now all have a greater appreciation for the need to repair the bathrooms.” Liberatoscioli also added that parents are still requesting an expedited timeline for the repairs and “a much better temporary solution in the form of upgraded bathroom trailers during the remainder of the work.”
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