4 THE QUEENS COURIER • MARCH 17, 2022 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
Ung applauds City Cleanup Corps for beautifying downtown Flushing
BY CARLOTTA MOHAMED
CMOHAMED@SCHNEPSMEDIA.COM
@QNS
Councilwoman Sandra Ung joined
workers from the City Cleanup Corps at
Bland Playground on Th ursday, March 10,
to commend them for the work they have
been doing all week to beautify downtown
Flushing.
Ung was joined by Queens Parks Commissioner
Michael Dockett, Flushing BID
Executive Director Dian Yu and Rudy Giuliani
from the Mayor’s Offi ce of Housing
Recovery Operations at Bland Playground,
located at 40th Road between Prince Street
and Main Street.
Photo courtesy of City Cleanup Corps
Graffi ti on the wall of Lippman Plaza before
the cleanup.
“I want to thank the City Cleanup Corps
and all of the city agencies who have been
hard at work beautifying Flushing,” Ung
said. “Keeping Flushing clean is a high
priority of mine, so I’m grateful for any
help we can get.”
Th e CCC was a COVID-era initiative to
hire 10,000 workers to increase staffi ng at
city agencies. Crews from the departments
of Sanitation, Parks and Transportation, as
well as from NYCHA and the Economic
Development Corporation, were among
the over 100 workers in Flushing last
week.
Every week, the CCC focuses its eff orts
on a diff erent neighborhood across the
Photo courtesy of City Cleanup Corps
fi ve boroughs.
Ung is urging her constituents who see
garbage or graffi ti in the district to contact
her offi ce.
“If you do have any issues with garbage or
if you see graffi ti that needs to be removed,
please feel free to call our offi ce and we will
get on it as soon as possible,” Ung said.
‘Sad, and a bit scary’: Hollis church statue vandalized during attempted robbery
BY BILL PARRY
BPARRY@SCHNEPSMEDIA.COM
@QNS
A Hollis church has been vandalized
for the third time since 2019, according
to the Diocese of Brooklyn.
The Diocese is working with detectives
from the 103rd Precinct in Jamaica
following an attempted robbery this past
weekend at St. Gerard Majella Catholic
Church, located at 188-16 91st Ave.
On Sunday morning, March 6, a man
tried to steal the statue of the Blessed
Virgin Mary from the lawn outside the
parish rectory, removing the Marian
statue from the grotto, according to
the Diocese. Surveillance video shows
the man entering the gate, lifting the
statue over his shoulder, and exiting
the property.
The video then shows him throwing
the statue back into the rectory garden
moments later after a neighbor and a
motion light deterred him. There was
no damage to the statue.
“Sunday morning, as we started opening
up the church to welcome people to
pray in a special way for peace in the
world, and blessings during this Lenten
season, a disturbed person attempted
to steal our welcoming statue of Mother
Mary,” said Father Josephjude C. Gannon,
Pastor of St. Gerard Majella.
“Thankfully, due to our good neighbors
in Hollis, this person did not succeed.
This incident is sad, and a bit scary, but
is a lesson for all of us that even in those
dark and frightening moments, God is
protecting us. The light of Easter will
always shine on us and Mother Mary
will always guide us as individuals and
as a community.”
Last August, video surveillance captured
images of a man as he tried to set
the church on fire. The men set a scarf
alight and threw it into the church vestibule
while the doors were open. The man
sat down on the church’s steps where he
was confronted by Fr. Gannon before
running off. Nobody was hurt and the
church was not damaged.
In Sept. 2019, detectives from the
103rd Precinct arrested a 69-year-old
Jamaica woman in connection to two
acts of vandalism at the church. The
woman told investigators that “black
magic” caused her to take a hammer to
the Rosary Stations, which were crafted
in Italy. The parish signs affixed to
a fence, and a sprinkler system at the
church.
Councilwoman Sandra Ung thanks workers from the City Cleanup Corps for their work in her district.
Photo courtesy of Diocese of Brooklyn
The aftermath of the attempted robbery of the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary from the lawn
outside St. Gerard Majella.
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