NYPD K-9 Unit HQ To Be Built In Dutch Kills
BY THOMAS COGAN T
he November meeting of the Dutch Kills Civic Association (DKCA) featured two interesting teams of visitors-a trio of women from Mount Sinai Hospital of TQueens and two officers from the Police Department's K-9 unit, the dog patrol. There was also further word on local building and local zoning, complaints about automobile vandalism and election of the DKCA officers and board.

Several of the changes Mt. Sinai Hospital Queens has recently undergone include extensive renovation of the emergency room and installation of a radiology suite.

The police officers, Lieutenant John Pappas and Sergeant Brenner, were the first to address the meeting at the St. Patrick's school cafeteria on 28th Street near 40th Avenue. Pappas, who spent several years at the 114th Police Precinct, did most of the speaking. He has been making the rounds locally (he was at the October meeting of the Community Board 1 cabinet), telling his listeners that the unit was created in January 2006 because Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly thought it would be vital in the interest of security and counterterrorism; and also, that a home for the unit was being built at Northern Boulevard and 33rd Street. That home is a series of non-permanent structures, with kennels for the dogs, which nevertheless go home with their human partners at night. The dogs, Pappas said, are used in the subways (he emphasized that the Northern Boulevard location places them virtually in the center of the entire subway system) and for emergencies, of which the city has no shortage. He also referred to counterterrorism measures but said he couldn't elaborate. He said the dogs are trained hard and several "wash out", or fail to respond well to the tasks demanded of them. (One K-9 officer is currently handling his third dog, Pappas said.) The breed is German shepherd exclusively, with all dogs coming from Slovakia, the Czech Republic or Poland. Europe provides better bloodlines, Pappas explained, and all the dogs (which the K-9 unit gets from dealers in Oklahoma and Connecticut) are bred for police work.

The Mount Sinai Hospital of Queens, 25-10 30th Ave., was once Astoria General Hospital but now is known as the Queens campus of the main Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, and has the same faculty of medical personnel, according to Judy Trilivas, who was the first of the hospital's spokeswomen. Trilivas said she has been at Mt. Sinai for 32 years, 19 of them as a nurse and the last 13 in administration. She described several of the changes the hospital has been through, which include extensive renovation of the emergency room and installation there of a radiology suite, a new magnetic resonance image (MRI) unit and a second computed axial tomography scan, or CAT scan. There is also a non-invasive cardiology department. Trilivas said the hospital is "committed to the education of the community" about health care, particularly in such areas as palliative care, which involves tending to those near the end of life. Following Trilivas, Deborah Tarulli urged each one the audience to establish a health care proxy. She also spoke of the "smart card" that Mount Sinai is trying out: a debit card that can contain the entire health history of the person who carries it. The third representative, Ana Rodriguez, prepared the display of printed materials and otherwise amplified her companions' remarks.

DKCA President Jerry Walsh said that the previous Sunday's New York Marathon brought out a large number of volunteers-165 by his count-to assist and otherwise cheer on the tens of thousands of runners who came down Crescent Street and into the south side of Queensborough Plaza as they made the turn that took them across the Queensborough Bridge. His news about the Dutch Kills zoning plan was that its date for being finished has been pushed back from summer 2007 to December. He said the local group's effort to get R6A status for a part of 41st Avenue, thus allowing for taller buildings there, was turned down by the Department of City Planning. Being part of that group, Walsh said, though not rancorously, that the persons from Planning were "headstrong" in determining that their conclusions about building size (they favored somewhat smaller than the group did) should carry. He said the proposed hotel at 29th Street and 39th Avenue, the "Holiday Inn site", is now being seen as 12 stories high, down from 16.

Walsh was told by three or four people in the audience that a rash of vandalism on automobile windows has broken out in the area. He said he would bring it to the attention of the 114th Precinct. When the complaints persisted, he reminded them of what Dutch Kills was like 10 or a dozen years ago, when he, for one, had his automobile windows vandalized about 10 times.

Nominations for DKCA officers for 2007- 08 having been made last month, and with no further nominations being made in November, the nominated slate was elected unanimously. Gerald J. Walsh is president; Eugene Napolitano is vice president; Marge Fasano is financial secretary; Connie Stamatiades and Thea Romano are corresponding secretaries; Theresa Cavallo is recording secretary; Gloria Maloney is treasurer, and Jimmy Natale is sergeant at-arms. Board of directors members are Jay Alum, Dalgis Fonseca Acosta, Barbara Lorenz, Steve Morena, Kim Teixera, Chris Vilardi and Pat Wilson. Ted Caliendo is an honorary board member.