14 The Courier sun • september 11, 2014 for breaking news visit www.couriersun.com MALBA DEFENDS ITS SMELL BY CRISTABELLE TUMOLA ctumola@queenscourier.com/@CristabelleT Malba residents say something stinks about a recent website ranking that named their affluent neighborhood as the smelliest in Queens. New York City real estate website BrickUnderground and apartment data site AddressReport compiled a list of the 10 smelliest and 10 least smelly neighborhoods in Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan, using data from the frequency of 311 complaints for odorrelated issues that was then weighted for population. Among the complaints were sewer backups and odors, vehicle and restaurant fumes, and missed trash collection. Malba was rated as Queen’s smelliest neighborhood and the third smelliest in the three boroughs after Brooklyn’s Greenwood Heights and Navy Hill. Koreatown was the smelliest area in Manhattan. A section of northeast Queens with multi-million dollar houses and expansive water views, Malba locals had issues with the analysis, saying the area was clean, well-maintained and virtually odor-free. On a hot Friday afternoon last week, Steven Vitale, 24, who has lived in the neighborhood his whole life, made an observation about the smell in the neighborhood. “The smelliest thing here is me,” the jogger said, shirt soaked in sweat. “Otherwise, this area smells fine to me.” Eliza Kalas, who has lived in Malba for the last five years, agreed. “It’s not that bad here and it’s certainly not worth complaining about,” she said, referring to the 311 complaints. The only area she noticed with a slight smell was by the water on Boulevard Street. Other Queens neighborhoods with offensive smells included Lindenwood, which came in at number two, followed by Neponsit, St. Albans, College Point, Howard Beach, Bayswater, Cambria Heights, Broad Channel and Beechurst/Whitestone. Overall, western Queens smelled better than the rest of the borough. North Corona was ranked as number one of the least smelly neighborhoods in Queens, followed by Corona, Woodside and Elmhurst. The remaining top 10 included Rego Park, Sunnyside, Jackson Heights, Bellerose, East Flushing and Ridgewood. Nicholas Kaizer, vice president of the Malba Association, found issue with how the data was analyzed since, according to him, there are only around 400 homes in the area. “Though not a statistician, it’s pretty obvious that the tiny size of the sample population seriously calls into question the value of the per capita method of analyzing odor complaints to the city,” he said, calling the data skewed. “The sounds and smells coming off of our waterfront — and throughout our small neighborhood — are among our greatest assets and we jealously guard our native habitat, policing and tending to the grounds regularly, as our community has done for over 100 years,” Kaizer said. Kids N’ Shape celebrates 25 years BY SALVATORE LICATA slicata@queenscourier.com/@sal_licata1 Live a healthy lifestyle and have fun doing it — that’s the motto of Robert Guarneri, who started his fruitful business, Kids N’ Shape, in a school hall 25 years ago. As a longtime physical education teacher, Guarneri knows how important it is for children to have active lifestyles. With the introduction of video games, Guarneri saw that adolescents weren’t going out as much to play or exercise, and he wanted to do something about it. “I saw that kids weren’t as active as they should be and wanted to find a way to make exercise fun,” Guarneri said. “That’s why I decided to do this.” Kids N’ Shape was started in 1989 in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. With its success, Guarneri decided to open up a location in Howard Beach in 2006. He celebrated 25 years in business on Sept. 6 and said the community and his patrons have been nothing short of amazing. “When we came here we were welcomed with open arms,” he said. “It’s a great spot.” Kids N’ Shape offers a plethora of activities for children to come and have fun. It hosts open play hours as well as birthday parties, schools trips and summer camps. Guarneri said the birthday bashes have been so successful that he usually hosts more than 60 parties a month. To find out more about Kids N’ Shape go to www. kidsnshape.com. THE COURIER/Photo by Salvatore Licata Kids N’ Shape Malba was rated as Queen’s smelliest neighborhood. THE COURIER/Photo by Eric Jankiewicz
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