Murray Playground Renovation Finished Following a $1.275 million renovation, work on the new performance space and central green at Murray Playground in Long Island City has been completed, Queens Parks Commissioner Dorothy Lewandowski announced onWednesday, June 2. Queens Borough President Melinda Katz for sharing my commitment toward improving our open spaces here inWestern Queens.” Van Bramer has allocated over $10 million toward parks and playgrounds in the district since taking office, he said. The new central green is bordered by 1964World’s Fair design-benches and a stone-paved walking path. The new performance area has a stage and tiered seating.Anew water source for the dog run, and additional trees and shrubs were installed as well. “I am so pleased that the Borough President’s office was able to allocate $1,275 million toward the central green and performance space,” Katz said. “It was a worthy investment because these two new additions will help improve the quality of life of everyone who lives in the vibrant community of Long Island City.” This is the most recent improvement for the playground–– it was renovated in 2012 and a new bathroom and synthetic turf field were installed in 2010. These past improvements were also funded by $1.925 million from the borough president and $1.5 million from the mayor’s office. “Murray Playground is a great community amenity for Long Island City, whether human or canine,” Lewandowski said. “This new plaza and performance area will be a great complement to the recently completed playground, and a boon for local arts groups.” -CONTINUED FROM PG. 3- TIMES, THURSDAY, JULY 10, 2014 • 24 News From The WRBA to learn, which only increased my enthusiasm for learning. At first, Mom would check books out for me with her library card. But at some point—probably when I was 10 or 11—I was old enough to have a library card of my own. Finally receiving that piece of plastic, with its sky blue bar across the top and my signature on its reverse, was a rite of passage in my intellectual development. It signified that I was finally old enough to be trusted with those receptacles of knowledge. The world of learning was open to me on the same terms as any adult. It also helped me understand that learning is a lifelong endeavor. I remember vividly one day sitting at a table in the library. An older man was seated across from me, writing in a notebook, engrossed. He must be working on something very important, I thought to myself. Unable to curb my curiosity, I craned my neck and glanced at the notebook. He was copying multiplication tables, over and over. Decades older than my parents, he was working diligently to master something I had been fortunate to learn in fourth grade. I won’t forget my admiration at his effort. This library, I realized, was truly a place for people of all ages to better themselves. The library card that the Woodhaven branch issued to me opened up the doors of other libraries, too. When I was in the seventh grade and had to research a subject that not even the Woodhaven branch had much information about, I was directed to the Queens Library’s central branch on Merrick Boulevard in Jamaica. There, I found everything I wanted and more. The central library became part of my world by way of the Woodhaven branch. As I grew older, my literary tendencies only deepened, as did my fondness for the Woodhaven branch. I’ve had the chance to conduct research in some of the world’s finest libraries, but it’s all been part of an intellectual maturation process that the Woodhaven library facilitated. Future generations of Woodhaven residents deserve the same opportunities I enjoyed. The vast majority of people who will not end up as professional athletes starring in Madison Square Garden need public libraries, where crucial intellectual passions and valuable life skills will be fostered. Few other places or institutions in a community do this as effectively as its library. When the Woodhaven library was faced with crippling budget cuts in recent years, scores of residents came out to show their support and share their fond memories of the library. The Woodhaven Residents’ Block Association, The Friends of the Woodhaven Library, and others who protested these cuts recognized that they were fighting for an institution that opens up minds and opportunities. In this context, the threatened cuts had powerful practical and symbolic consequences. Similarly, the latest scandals do too. We in Woodhaven know that a community that allows its library to fade away without a fight is one that is willing to forfeit its intellectual future. And it appears, thank goodness, that our elected officials in Albany and in New York City seem to have a similar notion. The branches of the Queens Library cannot be permitted to wither, either through ill-advised budget cuts or through the excesses and incompetence of undeserving leaders. I might not have become the Yankees’ center fielder, but my life has been no poorer for it thanks to the solid foundation the Woodhaven library helped lay for me. Let’s see the Queens Library’s governance and leadership reformed quickly, so that it can emerge from these scandals and use its resources wisely to lay similar foundations for countless other Queens residents. Editor’s note: The next Woodhaven Residents’ Block Association meeting is on Saturday, July 19, 10 a.m. at Emanuel United Church of Christ (93-12 91st Avenue). Blenkinsopp is a member of Community Board 9 and director of communications for the WRBA. For additional information on the WRBA, visit www.woodhaven-nyc.org. -CONTINUED FROM PG. 4- Graffiti Vandals Hit After Funeral Chapels, located at 494 Seneca Ave., for Jason Wulf, a known graffiti vandal with connections to Queens, who was fatally electrocuted last Wednesday, July 2, after touching the third rail near a Manhattan subway station. At about 10:30 p.m. Monday night, law enforcement sources said, Bornemann and Alequin were observed putting graffiti stickers on Seneca Chapels’ exterior walls and onto a nearby Fire Department call box and a mailbox. Several vehicles parked along Seneca Avenue were also defaced, according to published reports. Volunteers from 104COP on patrol in the area observed the vandalism and attempted to stop the duo, who then fled into the Seneca Avenue M train station and boarded a Middle Village-bound train. Police were alerted, and 104th Precinct officers collared Bornemann and Alequin after they departed at the Metropolitan Avenue station in Middle Village. Officers reportedly recovered black and red acrylic paint markers and stickers from both suspects. The pair were charged with multiple counts of making graffiti, criminal mischief and possession of graffiti instruments, authorities noted. Bornemann and Alequin were held on Wednesday, July 9, pending arraignment, according to the Queens District Attorney’s office. -CONTINUED FROM PG. 1- Elm. Mom Cuffed For Killing Infant struggle and left the room. She allegedly returned about 30 minute later to find Felix unresponsive, Several hours later, Kelly made the emergency call, according to police. “This is a truly disturbing case of a mother accused of intentionally killing her helpless 11-month-old infant son,” Brown said. “The defendant is now facing serious charges that could lead to her spending the rest of her life behind bars if convicted.” She originally claimed to have returned home to find the child unresponsive and not breathing, police said. In later statements to police, however, Kelly allegedly claimed she placed him under some bed sheets, then took a shower and when she was finished discovered the child was unconscious, according to law enforcement. “I reached my breaking point, I didn’t want him anymore,” Kelly allegedly told investigators. The investigation was conducted by the 110th Precinct Detective Squad, the Queens Child Abuse Squad and the Queens Homicide Squad. Assistant District Attorneys Leigh Bishop, chief of District Attorney Brown’s Child Fatality Unit, and Brian Hughes of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Bureau, are prosecuting the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Kenneth M. Appelbaum, chief of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Unit. -CONTINUED FROM PG. 1- Pat Buchanan News & Opinion -CONTINUED FROM PG. 4- Nixon lost D.C. 3-to-1. The bureaucracy built up in the New Deal and Great Society was deep-dyed Democratic. Most crucially, the Big Media whose liberal bias had been exposed by Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew were hell-bent on revenge. All three power centers -- the bureaucracy, Congress, the Big Media -- worked in harness to bring Nixon down. No such powerful and hostile coalition exits today with Obama. In 2008, Obama carried D.C. 24- to-1 over John McCain. The While House Correspondents Association has at times behaved like an Obama super PAC. Liberal Democrats dominate the bureaucracy and control the Senate. Any Republican attempt at impeachment would go up against a stacked deck. And the GOP would be throwing away a winning hand for a losing one. For while the American people have shown no interest in impeaching Obama, they are coming to believe they elected an incompetent executive and compulsive speechmaker who does not know what the presidency requires and who equates talk with action. With the economy shrinking 3 percent in the first quarter, with Obama sinking in public approval, and with the IRS, NSA and VA scandals bubbling, why would Republicans change the subject to impeachment? The effect would be to enrage and energize the Democratic base, bring out the African-American vote in force and cause the major media to charge the GOP with a racist scheme to discredit and destroy our first black president. Does the GOP really want a fight on that turf, when they currently hold the high ground? If you are winning an argument, why change the subject? If the nation is led to believe Republicans seek to gain the Senate so they can remove Barack Obama from office after a GOP-led impeachment, then Republicans are not likely to win the Senate. Maybe that is why the Democrats are wailing about impeachment. Republicans should take away the football. Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of the new book “The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority.” If You See Breaking News On Your Block... Contact The Times Newsweekly Call 1-718-821-7500 • Email [email protected]
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