JPCA Prez Blasts Eyesores & Graffiti
Flagrant building code violations and graffiti-damaged buildings have left parts of Maspeth and Middle Village looking neglected, the president of the Juniper Park Civic Association (JPCA) told members at its meeting last Thursday, Feb. 27, in Middle Village.
“Our neighborhood is not looking good right now,” Robert Holden told the crowd at Our Lady of Hope School, calling on the city to take action and remediate aesthetic quality-of-life problems plaguing the community.
Holden held up photos of various residences around the area found to have a host of Buildings Department (DOB) violations-some of which have been left unresolved for years. One such residence on 84th Street in Middle Village has accumulated $30,000 in Environmental Control Board fines for having a crumbling garage and illegally parked commercial vehicles on premises.
Most recently, Buildings Department inspectors imposed an $8,000 fine against the property owner for illegally parking a box truck with commercial plates in the driveway, according to DOB records.
Holden claimed the owner of the 84th Street property also owned a home on 75th Street near 58th Avenue where commercial vehicles-many of which were covered in graffiti-have been regularly parked for over four years.
Another location Holden pointed to on Mazeau Street in Maspeth had graffiti-covered fencing and an illegally parked commercial vehicle in the front yard.
Though the DOB has conducted inspections and cited the property owners for various violations, he noted, the city has been slow to collect the fines.
“Who’s the big loser here? The neighborhood, of course,” Holden said, noting the city’s alleged inaction has had a detrimental effect on property values and community appearance.
“It’s a cancer that has kind of spread throughout the area,” he added. “We’re calling on the mayor to get the Finance Department” after the violators.
The DOB’s Kenneth Lazar stated the agency has been quick to respond to reported building code violations around the area. Regarding the 84th Street location, he noted the site was referred to the DOB’s Padlock Unit for further action, but that could take months.
Lazar encouraged all residents to continue reporting suspected violations to the DOB and the agency “will do [its] best to respond to every violation.”
Holden also called attention to a surge in graffiti around Maspeth and Middle Village. Vandals hit homes, businesses and even the Dry Harbor Road office of City Council Member Elizabeth Crowley in recent weeks.
According to published reports, Crowley indicated she reached out to police to remove the vandalism-and to a private contractor to have the tag power-washed from the office’s brickface.
With the spike in vandalism around the area, Holden suggested Crowley and other elected officials push the city to expand its cleanup efforts and make additional resources available to erase graffiti from the area.
“There’s no reason to have graffiti on homes. It lowers property values,” he said. “We have to demand our elected officials that they put money toward graffiti cleanups.”
Cold weather has hampered efforts have the tags removed, according to Capt. Christopher Manson, the 104th Precinct’s commanding officer.
“We’re not dropping the ball on graffiti,” he told residents, adding the precinct ranks near the top in the NYPD in graffiti arrests and cleanups year after year. Though the precinct regularly targets vandals for arrest, it has been unable to hold cleanups due to frigid temperatures that make painting or power-washing efforts near impossible.
Lt. George Hellmer, the 104th Precinct’s special operations coordinator, explained paint used to cover graffiti tags becomes difficult to spread when temperatures fall below 40º Fahrenheit. Moreover, power washing risks the development of ice on nearby sidewalks.
The precinct has been able to use chemicals resistant to the cold to remove tags and scratchitti from glass and metal surfaces, Hellmer added.
Manson said the precinct will “do the job” and remove graffiti from public property once weather permits, but strongly suggested property owners take that responsibility into their own hands. Removing graffiti from property soon as quickly as it appears eventually convinces vandals to go elsewhere.
“We can’t force people to clean graffiti,” he added, noting that some property owners-even when police or other organizations offer to remove the vandalism-refuse to provide consent to do so.
Police report
Overall, crime has fallen around the 104th Precinct by 3.1 percent so far in 2014, Manson reported. Grand larceny was the only major crime category to spike in the first eight weeks of the year.
Most of the grand larcenies involve telephone scams which amount to extortion, the captain stated. Callers posing as government agents or utility workers will contact a victim and threaten immediate prosecution or loss of service if they do not receive a payment.
In these “Green Dot” scams, the callers request the victim purchase a prepaid debit card for several hundred dollars, then remit the card’s serial number to process the payment.
“It’s everywhere,” Manson said of these larcenies. “If there’s a way for people to make a dime, they’ll do it.”
The command has also issued over 100 summonses in the last four weeks to the owners of commercial vehicles found illegally parked around the precinct, Manson said. The precinct is also planning to crack down on serious vehicular violations as part of the NYPD’s participation in the “Vision Zero” traffic safety initiative.
The next Juniper Park Civic Association meeting is scheduled to take place on Thursday, Mar. 27, at 7:45 p.m. at Our Lady of Hope School, located at the corner of Eliot Avenue and 71st Street in Middle Village. For more information, visit www.junipercivic.com or call 1-718- 651-5865.
