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I agree with you - "why give a developer the power of eminent domain at the expense of current owners, residents, and business owners?" This is another land grab.

http://nymag.com/travel/article/state ... eball-weekend-escape.html

Staten Island or Coney Island: What?s the Better Beach Getaway?

Mary Jane Weedman

The Staten Island beaches ? like South Beach, pictured here ? have an undersung excellence.




Where?s better to enjoy a baseball-and-beach mini-vacation: Staten Island or Coney Island? Comparing two spontaneous, overlooked, and excellent weekend-getaway trips that you can do with a Zipcar rental and a camping tent.

Staten Island
The Beaches
Much of Staten Island?s eastern coast was, of course, slammed by Hurricane Sandy. But the island has since recovered and is even working to prep its beaches for a future disaster. Lynda Ricciardone, the Staten Island Parks borough commissioner, broke down the beaches? personalities and features for us.

South Beach: If Staten has a beach-with-a-capital-B, it?s this one, probably the most crowded, and the one that many Staten Island kids grew up going to. (As did their parents and grandparents: In the ?50s, it was a bungalow-filled beach colony.) It?s the best beach for Instagrammable shots of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, and there?s a boardwalk with a bike path that overlooks the water ? the promenade length from South to Midland Beach is 2.1 miles. You can rent a bike ($12 per hour) at Wheel Fun Rentals, which also offers umbrellas and chairs for $8 a day. ?We get a lot of folks who don?t want to go to the crowded beaches in Brooklyn,? says Ricciardone, so there?s often lots of day-trippers sunbathing and mingling with locals. If you?re here on Wednesday, come by for fireworks and other entertainment starting at dusk.

Midland Beach: Seaview Avenue, near Father Capodanno Boulevard, is the divider between Midland and South Beach, and that?s near where you?ll find the Ocean Breeze fishing pier (for fishing tips, check out our guide to urban angling). At both beaches, there are recreation areas ? bocce, horseshoes, volleyball ? but Midland distinguishes itself with more parking. Of course, there?s the Sea Turtle Fountain, a water feature popular with kids, and at the south end of Midland is a barbecuing area. (You need to get a permit for groups of 20 or more, though that doesn?t mean you have a reserved space ? send someone early to stake your claim.) Back to the Beach ? a festival with concerts, vendors, fireworks, and the like ? is at Midland Beach and will be held July 22 and 23 this year.

Cedar Grove and Great Kills Park: Unlike at South Beach, as you move farther south, you?ll need to come prepared with food, beverages, bikes, and beach umbrellas, says Ricciardone. Cedar Grove (which was made public in 2011 and had been one of the last beach colonies in New York) is a local-frequented beach: Ricciardone notes that it?s not off a main thoroughfare and has only a small parking lot and a couple of lifeguard chairs. Still, she says, ?it?s a beautiful beach ? it?s bucolic, the sand is beautiful. It?s a really nice getaway. But whatever you?re doing, you?re bringing in for the day? ? so come with your cooler packed and umbrellas ready. ?We have a comfort-station trailer there,? she adds, ?but you?re not going there and riding your bike. If you?re looking to go by yourself and grab a book and sit out on a beach,? it?s perfect.

Wolfe?s Pond: This relaxed park and beach area is on the South Shore ? at Cornelia and Hylan Boulevard ? so it?s less crowded with down-for-the-day beach fiends, but there are barbecue and playground areas, an adult exercise area, an outdoor hockey rink, a dog run, and plenty of parking. It?s a small beach, Ricciardone acknowledges (but one with a fascinating history). ?People might go to barbecue, and the beach is part of that experience. It?s probably rare that people go just for the beach, but it has beautiful views,? she says. P.S.: A few miles south of here, Kayak Staten Island provides free kayaking trips on Sundays.

Now that this is happening - what will happen to Downtown JC, or JC as a whole, as far as property taxes?

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I hope they have fish on Fridays!

...but could it be anywhere as cheap as Rumba's?

http://rumbascafe.com

Can these greedy jerks just stop it!

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gang-shootout-at-new-jersey-arts-festival-kills-one-injures-22

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-new- ... -injures-22-idUKKBN1JD0H4

It kind of was in articles like those in the Philly Inquirer

?It gets portrayed as gang members shooting gang members. Drug dealers shooting drug dealers. Black-on-black crime. That?s how it?s going to be and it?s going to die down in two or three days,? he said. ?This is our Parkland. This is our Columbine. [Black communities] don?t have mass shootings in schools. They have them at clubs and gatherings.?

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/tre ... rd-forchion-20180617.html

As long as all goes well - it is just a little troubling with the Trenton news today. Gang violence is a real issue.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/17/trento ... es-1-dead-22-injured.html

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As a teenager, Snoop frequently ran into trouble with the law. He was a member of the Rollin' 20 Crips gang in the Eastside area of Long Beach, although he stated in 1993 that he never joined a gang. Shortly after graduating from high school, he was arrested for possession of cocaine, and for the next three years was frequently in and out of prison (including Wayside Jail).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snoop_Dogg

https://hollywoodstreetking.com/snoop- ... ed-out-hood-by-lbc-crips/

Hi - yes - but they are a few blocks east of the Fire House by Newark and third - lots of trucks and hoses and water -- they are also on 4th street toward Monmouth - again trucks ladders and hoses...

I see there was a fire up Newark Ave (629 - 631 Newark Avenue -- a pair of attached three-story buildings that house a meat market and a Domino's pizza) -- But the fire trucks are also on Newark between 3rd & 4th Street - what is going on there? That is many blocks away from the other area.

http://www.cityofjerseycity.org/sinatra.shtml

Frank Sinatra might have been born in Hoboken, but as soon as he was old enough to know better, he moved to Jersey City!

Among the highlights of Sinatra's life in Jersey City are:
The singer and Nancy Barbato of Jersey City were married here in Our Lady of Sorrows Church.

The newlyweds resided in an apartment at 137 Bergen Avenue.




HERE THEY ARE ON NEWARK AVE.

Their first two children ? Nancy and Frank Jr. ? were born at Margaret Hague Hospital in Jersey City.

Sinatra's first stint as a radio singer was on the local station (WAAT) in Late 1936, a 15-minute show for which he earned 75 cents.

Sinatra reportedly decided on a career as a singer after seeing Bing Crosby in a movie at the Loew's Theater here. Not long after that he won a singing contest at the recently-demolished State Theater. It was from Jersey City that Sinatra commuted to the Rustic Cabin in Englewood. The rest is history.

Ask you landlord to put up real video cameras and signs. It is cheap and then everyone can see who leaves the trash a mess or who is drinking out front etc...

Great idea!

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GREAT!
Ducks Don't Golf



https://youtu.be/IRRZWKMldgs

https://youtu.be/sJuIqoH_45I

https://youtu.be/Z3cD3ORJSVg

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Did you need to sign for these tax letters - JC sent me something - I need to pick it up and sign for it...

Sorry

Here is the letter

http://www.njrealestatetaxes.com/LetterToJerseyCityCouncil.pdf

and here is their website

http://www.njrealestatetaxes.com

http://www.njrealestatetaxes.com/JCCouncilMembers.pdf

What are they talking about?

I don't think I would put one in either - but they do have smart ones that work with the dog collar - but still a criminal can take it off your dog and break in.

https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B003SLICOO

$37 million awarded to N.J. couple in Johnson & Johnson baby powder cancer suit

JOE DZIEMIANOWICZ
BILL SANDERSON
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Updated: Friday, April 6, 2018, 8:23 PM

It?s soft, powdery, sweet-smelling ? and, says a New Jersey jury, deadly.

Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay $37 million in the case of a man who said he got cancer from the company?s baby powder, which he believes contained talc laced with asbestos.

Banker Stephen Lanzo III was awarded $30 million in compensatory damages Thursday by a New Brunswick, N.J., jury. Lanzo?s wife, Kendra, got $7 million.

Lanzo, 46, said he used Johnson & Johnson talc-based powder products for more than 30 years.

Retired FDNY firefighter dies of 9/11-related cancer
He claimed that by inhaling dust from the products that contained cancer-causing asbestos, he contracted mesothelioma, a deadly form of cancer that affects the lining of the lungs.

The jury found J&J responsible for 70% of the damages and a division of France-based talc supplier Imerys was responsible for 30%.

Lanzo?s case was the first to go to trial in New Jersey, Johnson & Johnson?s home state. The jury sat barely a mile from J&J headquarters.

One of the company?s biggest shareholders is Woody Johnson, a pal of President Trump and the current U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom. Johnson, who owns the New York Jets, is a great-grandson of J&J founder Robert Wood Johnson.

Brooklyn mom with cancer fights for husband?s return from Mexico
J&J is fighting thousands of lawsuits claiming its talc products also cause ovarian cancer.

Talc itself is not believed to be cancerous. It?s a mineral made up mainly of magnesium, silicon and oxygen.

A banker claimed that using Johnson & Johnson talc-based products for decades caused his cancer.

But talc is often mined near asbestos, which is long proven to cause mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer. Mesothelioma is almost always fatal.

Johnson & Johnson and other companies say that since the 1970s, they?ve kept asbestos out of their baby powders and other talc products.

J&J denied the lawsuit?s charges and said its products ? such as Johnson?s Baby Powder ? don?t contain asbestos or cause cancer.

During the trial, J&J lawyers claimed Lanzo could have contracted mesothelioma from other sources, said media reports. It noted that the house in Montclair, N.J., where he grew up once had asbestos-wrapped pipes, and that the public schools attended were also treated for asbestos.

?While we are disappointed with this decision, the jury has further deliberations to conduct in this trial and we will reserve additional comment until the case is fully completed,? Johnson & Johnson spokeswoman Carol Goodrich said in a statement.

The jury will begin a second phase of the trial to consider punitive damages on Tuesday.

J&J faces talc-related lawsuits by 6,610 plaintiffs around the country, Reuters reports.

The claims are largely based on allegations that the company failed to warn women about the risk of developing ovarian cancer by using its products for feminine hygiene.

A Los Angeles judge in October tossed a $417 million verdict for a woman who said she got ovarian cancer from J&J talc products.

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style ... er-suit-article-1.3918915

Can JC do something about these dangerous homeless people living in tents.

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...and April Fools Day?

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According to a United Nations Environment Programme report on the impact of tourism:

"Golf course maintenance can also deplete fresh water resources. In recent years golf tourism has increased in popularity and the number of golf courses has grown rapidly. Golf courses require an enormous amount of water every day and, as with other causes of excessive extraction of water, this can result in water scarcity. If the water comes from wells, overpumping can cause saline intrusion into groundwater. Golf resorts are more and more often situated in or near protected areas or areas where resources are limited, exacerbating their impacts."

And Tourism Concern (a British organisation that works "with communities in destination countries to reduce social and environmental problems connected to tourism") calculates that "an average golf course in a tropical country such as Thailand needs 1,500kg of chemical fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides per year and uses as much water as 60,000 rural villagers".

And just in case the archetypal plutocratic golfer is inclined to dismiss those concerns as only of interest to the denizens of developing-world tropical resort countries, it must be noted that the United States suffers from water scarcity and despoliation of natural land to feed the golf-playing frenzy as well. In water-scarce Las Vegas, for instance, golf courses accounted for 28 of the top 100 water users in a 2003 survey. And since access to water in the growing desert communities of Arizona and Nevada is subsidised by tax-payers throughout the country, all Americans pay the price for the wastefulness of their recreation.

Indeed, the proliferation of golf courses - there are now approximately 16,000 in the US, by far the most of any country in the world (with the UK coming in a distant second at 2,741), according to Golf Digest magazine - epitomises the profligate approach America has taken towards developing its landscape.

Golf courses and the attendant resort and retirement communities demonstrate a preference for carefully crafted imitations of nature and small-town life to the real thing, and they impose landscape and architectural norms better suited to the American northeast climate than the sun-belt, where development is booming. Indeed, golf even comes with its own class of vehicle - no other sport, save the other emerging American pastime of auto racing, can make the same claim, nor can other sports use nearly as much land per player.

Just as developers destroy real forest in the northeast to replace it with imitation forest on a golf course and attendant suburbia ("community" in the parlance of developers), in the southwest the norms of a much more arid climate are imposed. Free-standing homes that require more energy to heat and cool, surrounded by lush lawns adjacent to golf courses, both of which require tremendous amounts of water during 100-degree summers, are not natural to the desert. And yet they are constructed, from Florida to California.

These artificial monstrosities consume on average 150 acres of land that could be put to some more useful purpose, if not just left alone. From the Everglades to the San Fernando Valley, they pervert the natural habitat and divert water resources.

So if you turn on the TV and stumble on the US Open, pause before changing the channel. No, not to watch with bated breath as a guy in a sun-visor named Tiger or Phil swings a mallet every couple of minutes in an intense effort to poke a ball towards a tiny hole, but rather to consider whether the country could do with about 15,000 fewer places to play the silly game. After all, when you talk to someone who just came back from seeing the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone National Park you never hear them say: "Yeah, that was nice, but you know what it really needs? A golf course."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisf ... jun/14/thecaseagainstgolf

Jersey City officer dead from gunshot wound in possible suicide

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/natio ... suicide-article-1.3895744

A helicopter carrying first daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, had to be rerouted after one of its engines failed, law enforcement officials told CNN. The senior White House aides were flying from Washington, DC, to New York on Thursday afternoon in a two-engine helicopter when one engine failed, sources told the network. The chopper had to return to Ronald Reagan National Airport, where the couple hopped on a commercial flight instead. It is unclear how far into the less than two-hour trip they were when the engine failed. The aircraft was a Sikorsky owned by the Trump Organization.

Parents of NYC helicopter crash victim sue pilot for negligence

ABC News
March 11, 2018

PHOTO: Trevor Cadigan, 26, a former intern at ABC station WFAA in Dallas, seen with his father Jerry Cadigan, died after a helicopter crashed into the East River and flipped upside down

The parents of one of the victims killed in a helicopter crash in New York City's East River have filed a lawsuit against the pilot, Liberty Helicopters and other operators, claiming the defendants were negligent.

Five people drowned after the tourist helicopter plunged into the frigid East River of New York City on Sunday. Officials said the passengers chartered the helicopter for a photo shoot and were tightly harnessed because the doors were left open so they could get better pictures.

Killed in the crash were Daniel Thompson, 34, and Tristian Hill, 29, both of New York; Carla Vallejos-Blanco, 29, of Argentina; Brian McDaniel, 26, a firefighter from Dallas; and Trevor Cadigan, 26, who recently moved to New York from Dallas to start a journalism career.

The helicopter pilot, Richard Vance, 33, was the only survivor. While Vance was able to immediately free himself from his harness, the passengers remained buckled in and trapped in the helicopter, which flipped over and submerged.

Nancy and Jerry Cadigan, the parents of Trevor Cadigan, filed the suit, obtained by ABC News, in New York County Court Tuesday, claiming, among other things, that Liberty Helicopters failed to prepare the passengers properly in the event of a crash and that the company did not provide adequate maintenance on its helicopter to keep it from tipping over.

The Cadigans also accused Vance of failing to give the passengers a proper safety briefing and of being " careless in failing to take reasonable steps to extricate the passengers" after "he secured his own release."

Victims of NYC helicopter crash all drowned: Medical examiner
Police identify victims of NYC helicopter crash
Helicopter crash in Manhattan's East River kills all 5 passengers, pilot escapes

The other defendants named in the suit were FlyNYON, a helicopter charter, and NYONAir, an aviation services company, both of which are in the business of operating, maintaining, servicing and distributing sightseeing helicopters, according to the lawsuit. They, too, are accused of negligence.

The lawsuit claims that FlyNYON and NYONAir both allegedly "implemented a policy to cinch passengers into heavy duty harnesses which are tied to the helicopter floor with only a knife for passengers to free themselves from [frigid] waters." The suit also states that FlyNYON and NYONAir were "negligent in that their policy of so-called helicopter 'doors-off' photo flights is inordinately dangerous and risky and should only be permitted for professional photographers in special situations and not for amateur tourist photographers."

Due to the doors being open, the helicopter quickly filled up with water and began to sink, officials said.

The helicopter drifted all the way down to E. 59th Street, where rescuers were finally able to reach it and free the trapped passengers by cutting their harnesses, according to FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro.

Vance told New York Police Department investigators a passenger's harness somehow got wrapped around the fuel shut-off switch, accidentally cutting off the fuel supply to the helicopter and resulting in engine failure, multiple officials briefed on the investigation told ABC News.

Gary Robb, a helicopter crash lawyer for 37 years who is representing the Cadigans, told ABC News earlier today that Vance's explanation of the crash was an unlikely scenario.

"I find it implausible that a strap could cause that lever to be actuated because you have to pull it up and back," Robb said.

"These open door helicopters are death traps," Robb said. "You need to be an escape artist like Houdini if you're upside down and in cold water."

In a statement announcing the lawsuit this evening, Robb said: "The family wants this helicopter operator to be held fully accountable for their son's death and to cease and desist this terribly unsafe open-door flight operation. It is their strongest desire that this should never happen again."

In a statement Monday, Liberty Helicopters said, "We are focused on supporting the families affected by this tragic accident and on fully cooperating with the FAA and the NTSB investigations. These agencies have asked us to respect the investigative process by referring all press inquiries to them for any further comment."

NYONAir said in a statement, ?We are deeply saddened by the loss suffered by the family of Trevor Cadigan and will continue to work closely with the government authorities in their investigation of the accident.?

ABC News has reached out to FlyNYON and Vance for comment on the lawsuit but did not immediately hear back.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/parents-nyc- ... ligence/story?id=53726130

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The pilot of the helicopter, Richard Vance, after emerging from the frigid waters of New York City's East River on Sunday night.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/03/12/ ... -frantic-mayday-call.html

NYC helicopter company had 3 crashes in 11 years -- how did they happen?


Click link to see CNN

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/12/us/libe ... -crash-history/index.html

Also...

Pilot Escapes, Five Die After NJ-Based Tour Helicopter Crashes In East River



Twitter user JJ Magers captures the moment a New Jersey tour helicopter crashed into the East River Sunday.

Kearny's Fly Liberty Charter chopper went down south of East 86th Street near Gracie Mansion around 7:15 p.m., New York City Police Commissioner James P. O'Neill said.

The pilot was able to free himself and was taken to a hospital in stable condition, O'Neill said.

Fly Liberty Charter wasn't immediately available for comment when Daily Voice called at 10 p.m.

The helicopter was a private charter rented for a photoshoot, according to police.

The National Transportation Safety Board will be conducting an investigation, O'Neill said.

http://hackensack.dailyvoice.com/news ... hes-in-east-river/734141/