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RT07142016

2 times • JULY 14, 2016 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.qns.com Street repairs coming for greater Ridgewood area BY ANTHONY GIUDICE agiudice@ridgewoodtimes.com @A_GiudiceReport After numerous complaints from residents, damaged sewers (catch basins), manholes and fire hydrants across Ridgewood, Glendale, Maspeth and Middle Village are in line for repair, according to Community Board 5 (CB 5). The community board has been receiving reports about the unsafe and potentially dangerous conditions and have filed calls to the city’s 311 hotline about the locations several times since the beginning of 2016. Some locations, however, do not appear on the 311 site. “We have had numerous conditions requiring DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) repair that have gone unrepaired for one month or longer and those include sunken-in catch basins and in some cases fire hydrants being knocked over,” said Gary Giordano, district manager of CB 5. “In some cases we have conditions that have gone undone for more than six months. And several instances where the repairs have not been done in a timely fashion and the condition poses a danger to a driver or a pedestrian.” The DEP confirmed to the Ridgewood Times that they are aware of the problem locations reported to 311 and repairs have either already been completed or are scheduled for the coming weeks for those spots. Of the locations that have not been reported to 311, crews will be dispatched to investigate. The locations and conditions given by CB 5 are as follows: - Forest Avenue and the north east corner of Grove Street, there is a collapsed/severely sunken-in catch basin; - In front of 96-01 Metropolitan Ave., on the corner of Selfridge Street there is a severely sunken-in catch basin with holes on both sides and a curb piece missing; - 80th Street and the southwest corner of 69th Avenue, there is a sunken catch basin; - In front of 68-17 54th Ave., just off Jay Avenue, there is a depression next to a manhole; - North side of Metropolitan Avenue, just west of 69th Street, there is a knocked over fire hydrant; - On Penelope Avenue at 77th Street, there are sinking conditions next to a sewer manhole; - 64th Place south of Otto Road, there are sinking conditions that CB 5 has filed several times with 311; - From 63-44 to 63-28 78th St., there is a sunken sewer trench; - and there is a large hole next to a catch basin on 64th Road at 82nd Place at the southwest corner. Ridgewood Times has visited two of the nine problem sites throughout The city will soon make repairs to catch basins (above) that are defective or sinking in Ridgewood, Glendale, Maspeth and Middle Village. CB 5 and found the conditions not terribly unsafe, but more of a nuisance for drivers in the area. That is not to say, however, that the conditions at Photo courtesy of NYC Department of Environmental Protection the other locations do not pose an immediate danger to drivers or pedestrians, or that the conditions should not be remedied. “We had a much longer list, but from what I can now see, DEP repair crews have finally made into the Community Board 5 Queens area,” Giordano said. Thirty-three hospitalized after consuming a ‘bad batch’ of street drug in Bushwick BY EMILIE RUSCOE editorial@ridgewoodtimes.com @emiliesaysthat Thirty-three individuals found at or near the intersection of Myrtle Avenue and Broadway in Bushwick were sent to area hospitals on July 12 by what officials are identifying as a single “bad batch” of the street drug K2. The first affected individuals were found shortly after 9:30 a.m., when police and emergency medical professionals responded to a 911 call and found five men outside of 362 Stockton St. experiencing the effects of the drug, which include hallucination and disorientation, vomiting, urination and immobility. At pres time, 14 individuals were being treated at nearby Woodhull Hospital, nine at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, five at Interfaith Medical Center and five at Brooklyn Hospital Center. None of the individuals being treated are likely to die from the drug, and the investigation is ongoing. The police presence at Myrtle Broadway has increased in recent weeks. In late June reports were released in which locals characterized K2 use at Myrtle Broadway as having reached “epidemic” levels. On the night of July 12, one officer told a passing individual that the ongoing activity at the intersection was “just cleaning up the neighborhood, that’s all.” The intersection is also home to a location of START Treatment and Recovery Center, which serves patients struggling with opioid addiction, another major issue in the neighborhood. A longtime employee of the 24-hour grocery store Mr. Kiwi’s, which has been open at its location on the corner of Myrtle and Broadway for nine years, tells Ridgewood Times that the activity on July 12 is far from the worst he has seen directly outside the shop’s doors during his tenure there. At Stay Fresh Deli several blocks down Broadway, an employee had a different perspective on the day’s events. Upon leaving work after a night shift on the morning of July 12, he headed down Stockton Street to catch his bus home. The K2 users he saw scattered on the sidewalk there “looked like they were dead” and were markedly worse off than other users he’d seen in the past, and his initial impression of the sidewalk littered with bodies and surrounded by cops was that it might be the scene of a shooting. The magnitude of the issue was such that NYPD police vans were being used to transport affected individuals to hospitals, he says. Ridgewood Times/Photo by Emilie Ruscoe


RT07142016
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