Stand-In Speakers Advise Sunnyside Chamber On Arch
BY THOMAS COGAN

At the March luncheon of the Sunnyside Chamber of Commerce, Andrew Hollweck (back row, fourth from l.), of the New York City Economic Development Corporation public affairs office, spoke about the repair project for the Sunnyside Arch. Others in the back row (l. to r.) are Juan Toro, 108th Police Precinct community affairs officer; Gerry Lederman, former SCC president; Roel Vanderkooi, SCC board member; Detective Glenn Yule of the 108th Precinct; Mark Stroubos; John Vogt, current SCC president, and Carlos Moreno of NYMex Towing. In the front row are three SCC board members: Miguel Flores, Lily Gavin and Terry Facciuto

The March luncheon meeting of the Sunnyside Chamber of Commerce was scheduled not for its usual Tuesday but two days later, Thursday, March 16, to accommodate the schedule of its guest speaker, Assemblymember Catherine Nolan. In early March, however, Nolan became head of the Assembly Education Committee, a job that left her too busy to attend the SCC luncheon at Dazies Restaurant on Queens Boulevard on that Thursday or any day soon. So it was back to the Tuesday standard for the Sunnyside group, and at the meeting the early afternoon audience heard news about the Sunnyside arch and about the immediate vicinity, both due for extensive improvement, a talk about identity theft and the latest report about graffiti.

Andrew Hollweck, a government and community relations officer for the New York City Economic Development Corporation, spoke about repair of the Sunnyside Arch, at 46th Street and Queens Boulevard, under the Bliss Street elevated station of the No. 7 line. The arch has been scheduled for repair for so long that SCC President John Vogt was moved to say, "Sometimes I want to go out there at night with a brush and a gallon bucket of paint." A more orderly procedure has been proposed, and it is currently aided by a guarantee of $500,000 from a variety of federal, state and city sources. Hollweck said that a meeting to be held March 23 would determine how that money is to be distributed to repair the arch, nearby benches and street lighting fixtures. "A half a million dollars sounds like a lot, but you have to spend it carefully," Hollweck warned. The design phase, he said, should be about six to eight months, during which time approval of the Arts Commission has to be gained, and no one concerned is taking it for granted. Hollweck said that everyone hopes a contractor can be hired and at work within 12 to 14 months. When asked if there has been any difficulty appropriating funds because they come from so many sources, he said there has been none: "It all goes into our bank account."

Community Board 2 Chairman Joseph Conley had a few announcements. The April board meeting will be held at the Citibank Building on Jackson Avenue and will be dealing with the grand building plan proposed by Silvercup Studios, to be situated along the East River and beside the Queensboro Bridge. It looks magnificent as illustrated in articles in the city's newspapers, but its impact on Long Island City may be problematical, Conley said, and many people should be lined up to express their concerns at the meeting. One of his chief concerns is the dearth of hospital facilities within Board 2 territory. Neighborhoods are growing, he said, but hospitals are being closed; this must inevitably become a critical problem, in need of solution. He observed that La Guardia Community College is going through a major expansion and suggested that the Barnes and Noble bookstore within the school be expanded to street level and thus become a facility for both school and neighborhood. A large bookstore is urgently needed there, he said; the nearest such store is the Barnes and Noble in Forest Hills. Conley reported also about the Woodside/Maspeth zoning study, which has now arrived at the City Council for approval. He said that the zoning provisions along Queens Boulevard, which would allow residential buildings of perhaps seven or eight stories, would not bring what he called "full blown development" but development only in spots along the thoroughfare. The R7X zoning would exist in a strip running close to 25 blocks on the boulevard, but it would be shallow and would not allow building deep into the side streets.

108th Police Precinct Commander Captain Matthew Whelan had been scheduled to substitute for Nolan, but he was absent too, having been called to a commanders' conference at Patrol Borough Queens North headquarters. Speaking in his place was Detective Glenn Yule, who spoke of identity thieves, confidence artists and the hidden dangers that may lurk in seemingly innocuous artifacts of modern life, such as hotel door cards. These successors to door keys, Yule told the luncheon attendees, have strips containing hotel guests' credit card information that can be picked up and used by persons who happen to get hold of any card. That was the first of his "This could happen to you!" warnings that included scare tactics over the phone by alleged law enforcement officials who are ultimately after vital information such as Social Security numbers, and a tortuous swindle that in the end could leave some poor sucker owing tens of thousands on a luxury automobile he thought he'd bought, but which instead had been seized by police as a stolen vehicle. Oh yes, and shred all your paper trash more than once and put it in separate bags; life's tough out there, Yule advised. After Yule described a counterfeit cashier's check racket, Chris Conroy, a former banker and currently a senior advisor at Financial Future, said cashier's checks are no longer considered the equivalent of cash (and he brought up the problem of counterfeit cash too) and have been succeeded by personal identification number (PIN) debit cards.

Yule was asked about the law passed by the City Council that would require building owners to clean graffiti from their property within six months of notice by the Department of Sanitation. He said that if such owners call 311, they can get the mayor's office to send a cleaning crew, thus securing good-faith status for however many months it takes the mayor's cleaning crew to arrive. (The fall and winter months can be discounted, because graffiti cleaning is rarely done in cold weather.) At the same time, he praised private initiative teams of graffiti removers, such as the one run by Sunnyside resident Lew Story, which have removed a lot of graffiti and proven the theory that if an affected area is cleaned it is not likely to be attacked by graffiti vandals again. As for the Phun Factory at Crane Street and Jackson Avenue in Long Island City, that international resort of graffiti artists is currently closed because it has been the site of parties where alcohol has allegedly been offered to minors. He said the property owners have been told that the Phun Factory may be opened again-but only after its many walls have been cleaned of all those graffiti and illustrations. There may be an extensive period of dickering and wrangling ahead over the Phun Factory.

The chamber welcomed a new restaurant owner at the luncheon: Al Bentahar, owner of Sunnyside Grill, which has just opened at 4617 Queens Blvd. Bentahar has an extensive culinary background in New York and London.