Green Market Opens at Elmhurst Hospital

By Tamara Best

The aroma of fresh vegetables, fruits and flowers greeted customers as they made their way to the opening day of the Greenmarket outside Elmhurst Hospital Center.

“I think the market is wonderful. We should eat more healthy, I know I should,” said Eileen McMahon of Corona during a visit on Tuesday morning.

A program of Grow NYC, the market is located on 41st Avenue between 80th and 81st streets and is celebrating its 34th year. Many of the farmers present at the market drive from upstate New York and other neighboring states to sell their merchandise. Approximately 15 merchants were on hand selling fresh goods and said that they are excited for this season’s market.

“The corn is flying, which is surprising,” said Greg Lebak with Lebak Farms, who has participated for 21 years. “People know our corn so when they see it, they buy it— I’m excited.” Lebak said he first heard about the market from a friend and decided to give it a try. With good sales, he says he continues to return each year.

A worker with Sun Fed Beef, which is participating for its second year, said they are hopeful that this year will also be a success.
“People really like fresh food, vegetables,” he said. “But trying to get people to buy frozen beef on the way to work is a little more difficult.”

Olga Perez, who works for Elmhurst Hospital, said she heard about the market and decided to step outside to browse over the selection.

“I think it looks great, I’m looking for anything that’s good. Everything is fresh.”

City Council Member Daniel Dromm (D-Rego Park) hailed the market as something that “benefits everyone” by creating a healthier eating options for the community while providing an income for farmers.

Greenmarket began in 1976 and now has over 50 locations across the city. The market will be held every Tuesday in Elmhurst through November 23. In an effort to accommodate all customers the market is accepting EBT/Food Stamps, WIC and Senior FMNP coupons.

Maspeth House of Horrors Terrorizes Neighbors

By Conor Greene

Residents of a quiet residential block in Maspeth have been terrorized for several years by an emotionally disturbed man who they say regularly harasses neighbors and has turned his home into a crack house.

While residents of 66th Street will have some temporary relief after the individual, Hani Nasser, was recently jailed on assault charges, they worry about the condition of his house at 52-45 66th Street, which is unsecured and could attract squatters and junkies.

“It’s been a non-stop nightmare,” said one longtime resident of the block who asked to remain anonymous. “He has basically turned this into a crack house” that attracts underage teenagers at all hours of the night, the resident added.

Despite appeals to the 104th Precinct, Community Board 5 and local elected officials and civic groups, the problems have continued. “Half the time they don’t even show,” the resident said of the precinct. “They treat it like it’s a joke… There is not another single problem on this block,” which is home to several dozen children, he said. “The people living on both sides are terrorized. He gets confrontational and targets the neighbors.”

Civic leader Roe Daraio, president of Communities of Maspeth and Elmhurst Together, has been working with 66th Street residents in hopes of forcing the city to take action. “It’s not really progress, but the guy is in jail right now,” she said. Adjacent residents were affected when a pipe in the house burst last year and are concerned that the house will be left to deteriorate, added Daraio.

Neighbors have informed Daraio that Nasser, 25, is enrolled in an out-patient drug treatment program at Elmhurst Hospital Center and blew up a garage behind the home while getting high several years ago. “He gets confrontational with neighbors, invites teens over there, and meanwhile the house has gone into serious decay,” said Daraio, echoing the laundry list of complaints she has heard from neighbors. “He’s in jail now, but that’s not solving the problem. For six months, they’ll be fine, but it’s a Band-Aid effect.”

Daraio has reached out to local elected officials for assistance, but thinks the city needs to go after Nasser for failing to maintain the home. “Maybe if the family starts getting violations, they’ll start paying more attention,” she said, adding that Nasser lives there alone and is supported by his relatives. “To give him free reign of a private house, I don’t think is the smartest thing. It’s become the neighbor’s problem, and it shouldn’t be that way. It’s a quiet block, and everyone is friendly with one another.”

Residents agree that the city needs to step up and secure the house so that it doesn’t pose a danger to local children or cause damage to adjacent properties. “The city has to condemn that house – that’s the bottom line,” the longtime resident said, adding that he fears a physical confrontation will eventually occur. “Somebody is going to get hurt. It’s been ratcheting up since the summer.”

A visit to the empty house this week showed how the situation could become inviting to squatters and drug users. The front windows were wide open, and the unfurnished living room was strewn with trash. Neighbors worry that teenagers who used to hang out with Nasser will continue to use the house to get high while he is incarcerated.

An officer from the 104th Precinct’s Community Affairs Unit confirmed that Nasser was recently locked up, but said he was unaware of ongoing issues with neighbors. According to the Queens District Attorney’s Office, Nasser is currently being held on $2,500 bail after being charged along with three other men in an October assault outside the house.

Cop Car Strikes Pedestrian on Queens Blvd

Witnesses Claim Unmarked Car Ran Red Light

A 47-year-old Sunnyside man was struck by an unmarked police car while crossing Queens Boulevard with his girlfriend last week.

Witnesses told the Daily News that Evelio Villa and his girlfriend, Yanira Lopez, 55, had the green light when they started to cross the boulevard at 44th Street in Sunnyside last Thursday at about 8:30 p.m. “This guy was flying. He went like a bat out of hell,” a 23-year-old Woodside man who witnessed the collision told the newspaper. “There were no screeching brakes, no tire marks, nothing.”

However, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters that Villa was “highly intoxicated” and “tried to run across the intersection.” He added that the driver of the vehicle, which was from the 109th Precinct and was responding to a call to assist an officer, slammed his face against the steering wheel and was taken to a local hospital to be treated for shock. He said investigators were looking at videotapes to determine whether the car ran a red light as witnesses insisted.

Villa, an unemployed construction worker, was listed in stable condition at Elmhurst Hospital Center, where he was treated for a fractured shoulder.

The Forum Newsgroup/photo by ROBERT STRIDIRON

Out of Control Livery Cab Injures Pedestrians at Parade

A livery cab driver lost control of his car and plowed into a street festival at the Ecuadorian Parade on Sunday. More than a dozen people were taken to New York Hospital Queens and Elmhurst Hospital to be treated for back and leg injuries. Two people were burned with grease from food stands and several others got minor burns from chemical that leaked from the crashed car.

The wild scene unfolded when the car plowed through several food booths at the fair on Junction Boulevard and 37th Avenue shortly after 1 P.M. When the car came to rest, a propane tank wedged underneath had to be removed by NYPD Emergency Service Unit.

The Lincoln Town Car tore through three tents along the street, sending charcoal and shish-kebobs flying through the air. A vendor preparing fruit at a juice stand said she saw the car coming and heard screaming. “It was very fast,” she said, “and very scary.”

Police say the 59-year-old driver remained at the scene and will not face charges.

Two Hospitals Begin Limited Admissions

St. John's, Mary Immaculate Set to Close Within Weeks

By Conor Greene

Two local hospitals will no longer accept patients starting Saturday as they prepare to close in the coming weeks.

Caritas Health Care, the parent company of St. John’s Queens Hospital in Elmhurst and Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica, filed last week for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and submitted a closure plan to the state Department of Health. That decision means, barring a last minute state bailout, the two hospitals will likely close by February 28.

The process of shutting down its operations began soon after the board voted to file for bankruptcy. Beginning this week, Mary Immaculate was no longer accepting psychiatric patients, while St. John’s was no longer accepting pediatric patients. Starting midnight Friday, both hospitals will no longer accept any patients, including at their emergency rooms.

According to a source who received the FDNY operational order sent to EMS units, two ambulances will be stationed at each hospital ER beginning Friday night. Patients who arrive for treatment unaware of the closings will instead be taken to nearby hospitals.

The board’s decision came after several weeks of emergency meetings between local officials and hospital executives, who worked to secure a last minute deal to keep the struggling facilities open. The two hospitals are losing a total of about $5 million each month and have received $50 million in state grants and loans in the past two years – including $6 million in January.

“Our round-the-clock efforts with elected officials and with the New York State Department of Health over the past week have proven futile,” said Caritas CEO John Kastanis in a memo sent to employees. “No adequate source of funding has been identified and no long-term plan for the continued operation of the hospitals has been forthcoming.

“Since there has been no official or unofficial news from Albany this week regarding a possible solution to our crisis, the Board was, much to its dismay, left with no recourse,” continued Kastanis. “Time has essentially run out.”

Closing the hospitals would cost 2,500 healthcare professionals their jobs and force Queens residents to go elsewhere for medical treatment. Combined, the hospitals have about 450 beds and serve 200,000 individuals annually, including 100,000 patients in the two emergency rooms.

Several rallies were held in front of both hospitals and at City Hall in the past few weeks, and employees headed to Albany on Wednesday in a last-ditch effort to convince the state to bail out St. John’s and Mary Immaculate. “Tomorrow is really to have the politicians see face to face the people who are going to be affected, to see the people who are providing for the registered voters and the community that we provide health care to” said registered nurse Carlos Quiles outside St. John’s on Tuesday.

Residents, employees and patients said that it is unacceptable for the state to refuse to take action to save the hospitals. “I can’t understand how they can close a hospital in such a heavily populated neighborhood such as this,” said Dave Herbert, whose father was rushed to St. John’s on Monday night. “I don’t know the politics behind this, but somebody needs to do something right away… If this place wasn’t open, where would we go? Elmhurst is already packed… It’s insane.”

Ken Akins, who brings his mother to St. John’s every week for wound care, thinks the impact on the patients is being ignored. “My mother is frightened. She doesn’t know if the hospital closes where she is going to go,” said Akins. “She has bonded very well with the people who give quality care here. It’s always the elderly, the disenfranchised that gets hit the hardest.”

Akins, who said he worked at Mary Immaculate for 30 years, blamed the hospital’s financial struggles on mismanagement. “It would be a shame before God if Governor Paterson allows them to close… It has nothing to do with the quality of care and support the staff gives their patients. If we lose, we’re losing something that can’t be replaced.”

Queens Borough President Helen Marshall called news of Caritas’ decision “distressing” in a statement. “We worked very hard to try and prevent the closures of both these hospitals. I have been in touch with Governor Paterson’s office on almost a daily basis to try and find a solution.”

Marshall, who first informed the public of the hospitals’ dire financial status at her State of the Borough address last month, said she is demanding to see the closure plan Caritas filed with the state. “I want to see how capacity will be built at other hospitals. I want to see that every resident of Queens continues to get the healthcare that they are entitled to receive,” she said.

In addition to the 400 beds that will be lost by the closures, Mary Immaculate features a 115-bed nursing home, a cancer center and is a level-one trauma center. St. John’s is a certified stroke and heart failure center and has the only hyperbaric oxygen therapy unit in Queens. These losses come just months after another local facility, Parkway Hospital in Forest Hills, closed, eliminating another 250 beds.

Over the past month, a group of local officials led by Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith (D-St. Albans) have held meetings in hopes of finding a way to keep the hospitals open. At one point, officials at North-Shore Long Island Jewish Health System were exploring a plan to acquire the two hospitals and replace them with a state-of-the-art facility in central Queens. However, that would have required funding from the state.

In the end, Caritas determined that the negotiations, which reportedly also involved another health system, proved “futile.” Caritas, which also runs Wyckoff Hospital in Brooklyn, purchased St. John’s and Mary Immaculate for $41.5 million in 2006 from St. Vincent’s Catholic Medical Centers, which had filed for bankruptcy protection the prior year.

Girl Struck and Killed by School Bus

Hit in Elmhurst on Way to Francis Lewis HS

By Conor Greene

A 14-year-old girl was killed last week while on her way to school when a school bus struck her at a busy Elmhurst intersection.

Jasmine Paragas, an honors student at Francis Lewis High School who excelled in foreign languages, was hit at 8:10 a.m. last Thursday as she crossed 57th Avenue near the Queens Center Mall. She was pronounced dead less than an hour later at Elmhurst Hospital Center.

George Severino, 62, was driving the yellow minibus north on 90th Street when he turned left onto 57th Avenue, striking the girl in the crosswalk. The driver, who works for JEA Bus Company, stayed at the scene and was issued summonses for failure to yield to a pedestrian and for equipment violations.

There were four adult passengers in the minibus at the time of the accident, which occurred while Severino was transporting them to an education center for adults with special needs. He told the Daily News that he was too distraught to comment as he stood at the scene, weeping. “I’m sorry. I can’t talk right now,” he said. According to that report, Severino told police that he heard a thump, looked in the rearview mirror and say the girl lying in the intersection.

The driver has been involved in at least two prior accidents, according to state motor vehicle records. He was found guilty of an unsafe lane change in June 2007, and in 2006 was involved in a Brooklyn accident in which another person was injured.

Margie Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the city Department of Education, told the New York Times that Jasmine was a freshman who excelled in foreign languages and English. “She applied for and was accepted into the school’s University Scholars Program, which is an accelerated program for high school students at Francis Lewis,” said Feinberg.

The accident occurred just minutes after Jasmine’s mother had walked with her across Queens Boulevard, which is known as one of the city’s most dangerous roads for pedestrians to cross. Her mother had entered a subway station before the accident happened.

“She made it safe, but still this happened,” the girl’s cousin, Mac Tecson, told the Daily News. “It’s horrible. It happened so quickly. Nobody can believe it.” A picture of Jasmine was placed in a front window of the family’s house, which is just blocks from the tragic scene. A crisis team was brought into Francis Lewis to counsel students and staff as they mourned the loss.

According to reports, the family moved to Queens from the Philippines about six years ago and live on the top floor of a three-story house in Elmhurst.

Neighbor Showkat Kazi told reporters that the girl’s mother walked Jasmine across Queens Boulevard to the Q88 bus stop every morning. “It’s very hard for me… to take it,” he told CBS-TV. “She’s just like my daughter. She was playing at my house all the time.”