Board 1 Cabinet Hears Senior Residence Details
BY THOMAS COGAN

A crowd that included Community Board 1 members, guests and spectators assembled at the Kaufman Studio Café, formerly the Kaufman Astoria Studios commissary on 36th Street near 35th Avenue, where each month's Board 1 district cabinet meeting is held, became orderly under the steely gaze of District Manager George Delis and heard news about the home for the aged that is to be built in Astoria and also confrontation between the Steinway Industrial Park Association and the Department of Environmental Protection about a waste treatment plant. This month, rising gorge and raised voices also transpired because of a certain street that authorities have made oneway. Apart from that, a parade of persons with worthy causes addressed the board and attendees. There has been a long build-up about HANAC's senior home, to

be constructed on Hoyt Avenue at

29th Street, beside the exit from the Triborough Bridge. The home's constant spokesman, John Kaiteris of HANAC, told the meeting the latest news. The public parking lot that is to make way for the home will be closed in late December, he said, at which time the Department of Transportation will remove 10 parking meters from nearby streets as partial, and temporary, compensation for the loss of the parking lot. Kaiteris described the proposed 15-story, 184-unit structure that includes an atrium and a new, two-level garage that will have 69 spaces for the local community. Everyone involved hopes to see it completed by the autumn of 2008. Delis said that more than 4,000 applications for residency have been submitted to date.

Jack Brucculeri, vice president of the Steinway Industrial Park Association, had an interesting morning. He announced he was donating $1,200 to the Salvation Army when Captain Angelo Bermeo made his announcement about the SA's forthcoming holiday season. He also spoke about what he perceives as the problem SIPA is having with the Department of Environmental Protection and its Bowery Bay waste treatment plant on Berrian Boulevard, near the body of water that gives the plant its name. Brucculeri said he is proud of the progress the area, bounded by Berrian Boulevard, 19th Avenue, 37th Street and Hazen Street, has made since the late 1970s, when by his account it was in shabby condition. He is currently anxious that it is returning to that state because of actions taken by power plant operators, contractors and the EPA that works closely with them. He said that despite the fact the power plant at Steinway Street and Berrian Boulevard has a lot of unused parking space in the area, contractors believe it is necessary to, in his words, "occupy several parts of the street". Berrian Boulevard, bookended by the power plant at Steinway Street and the Bowery Bay waste treatment plant four blocks away, was seized and much of it fenced off from traffic. He said the DEP and the contractors should not only relinquish that territory but also restore it.

Responding to that complaint was John P. Leonforte of the DEP bureau of environmental engineering. He said the Bowery Bay treatment plant, one of three treatment plants in Queens (14 altogether in the city), was opened in 1940. Sixty years later, in December 2000, its most recent upgrade was begun and continues to this day. There have been unrealized completion dates and one contractor's bankruptcy, he admitted; the current promise is to have the upgrading finished by next summer. That and other projects are the reason to take up so much space in the industrial neighborhood, he said. Leonforte had the aid of two DEP engineers, Matthew Osit and Dennis Rizzo. The three said that when their work is done, they would restore what they have disrupted and depart. Brucceleri replied that the trees they pulled up had trunks about 10 inches in diameter, while the replacement trees would probably be only four inches in diameter, and eight years would have to pass before they grew to the larger size. He also remembered a vile odor that came from the Bowery Bay plant and afflicted the vicinity this past summer (before the power outage, fortunately). Delis interrupted to explain that a boiler had fallen into disrepair at the plant, with consequent stench. Delis also took the time to praise Brucculeri for the effort he and SIPA made at the turn of the century, repulsing the bid by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the city to extend the N train line from its terminus at 31st Street and Ditmars Boulevard to La Guardia Airport. (Brucculeri said that SIPA spent $95,000 opposing the extension.) Delis's tribute was exploded when Rose Marie Poveromo, board member and head of the United Community and Civic Association (UCCA), protested that many other groups besides SIPA (UCCA, for instance) had rallied to stop that project. George Stamatiades, CB 1 vice chairman, joined Poveromo in making the history lesson loud and clear to Delis.

Stamatiades' chief protest, however, was about the changing of 39th Avenue from twoway to one-way between Northern Boulevard and 21st Street, thus barring traffic into Northern Boulevard. "It's a road going nowhere," he said. Worse, he added, it was inflicted on the public without sufficient notification. (An observer at the scene would notice that some motorists have yet to appreciate the presence of a Do Not Enter sign at 39th Avenue and 31st Street and are still making their entry into Northern Boulevard from 39th instead of going, as they should, to 37th Avenue.) He expressed his concern to Dan Ross, representative of the Department of Transportation and successor at these meetings to Peter Goslett. Delis chided Stamatiades for protesting too much, causing Stamatiades to quit the room indignantly.

Delivering news folks could use was Bill Doak, Department of Sanitation superintendent, who outlined the department's plans for winter. That includes snow clearance, and Sanitation would do well to remember the big job it had clearing the stuff away last winter. A more immediate concern is leaf clearance. Doak specified that Saturday, November 18 and Saturday, December 2 are days to put out leaves for collection, in either the department's reinforced paper bags or clear plastic bags.

Bermeo announced that the Salvation Army Red Kettle holiday campaign begins Saturday, November 18 at the new Shops at Atlas Park, 71-19 80th St. between Metropolitan and Myrtle Avenues in Glendale. At that point, he found his group the beneficiary of Brucculeri's donation, which Brucculeri said he gave out of a lifetime of respect for the Salvation Army. Sue Smith of the Volunteers of America spoke of the group's outreach program for the homeless, which includes a van that can pick up homeless individuals on the street and deliver them to shelters. The V. of A. can also dispense Section 8 housing vouchers, through an arrangement with the city. Daniel Aliberti of the Queens Independent Living Center, Broadway and 23rd Street, described how his group helps disabled persons to live in the community, in preference to living in designated homes. Aliberti, who is blind, described several of QILC's services, all of them free of cost, for those determined to live independently. Samantha Elkrief spoke for Urban Justice, 666 Broadway in Manhattan, an organization of attorneys and legal advocates that aids the indigent in need of legal aid, and which otherwise specializes in public assistance, food stamps, emergency shelter denials and rent arrears. Elkrief also mentioned the Urban Justice Hour Children Pantry, which is set up each Monday from 2 to 4 p.m. in the parking lot of St. Rita's Church, 36-25 11th St., Long Island City.