Times Ledger: Ex-CB 3 District Manager Mary Sarro dies at 85

From Times Ledger: By Rebecca Henely

Anna Maria “Mary” Sarro, former district manager of Community Board 3, died Monday morning from cancer in her Jackson Heights home. She was 85.

Sarro, who grew up in Manhattan’s West Village before coming to Jackson Heights in the 1950s, was known for her prominent presence in her neighborhood and her spitfire personality.

“Mary’s many accomplishments will keep her memory alive for the residents of CB 3 for many years to come,” City Councilman Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights) said in a statement. “God bless Mary Sarro.”

Maureen Allen, a Jackson Heights resident and longtime friend of Sarro, said she had worked at the World’s Fair and as the social secretary for Edward Bronfman, of the Seagram’s liquor empire.

But she was best known for being the district manager of CB 3 from its inception in the 1970s until 1996. Allen said she also worked as an unpaid secretary for the community planning boards that predated community boards.

“She totally and absolutely loved the communities of the board area,” said Allen. “To her dying day she was still talking about the community and stayed active.”

CB 3 serves Jackson Heights, East Elmhurst and northern Corona.

Dromm said Sarro was a Republican and an early supporter of LGBT rights in the community. When he was forming the Queens Pride Parade in 1992, Sarro took him and others organizing the parade into the 115th Precinct to assure them the board wanted the parade in the community.

“We were always grateful to her for that,” Dromm said.

After resigning from the board, Sarro stayed active in the community, serving as sergeant at arms for the 115th Precinct Community Council. She was also part of the North Queens Homeowners Civic Association, the United Community Civic Association and the Jackson Heights Beautification Group.

Sarro never married.

“She was a very loving, kind, big-hearted, tough little lady who took great pride in her community,” Allen said.

Sarro’s wake was scheduled for Thursday at Conway Funeral Home, on 82-19 Northern Blvd. in Jackson Heights, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. and from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. The funeral is Friday at 10:30 p.m. at St. Joan of Arc Parish, at 82-00 35th Ave. in Jackson Heights.

NY1 Queens People Of The Week: Council Interns Provide Helpful Link To Queens Elders

From NY1: Agnes Chung

City Council summer interns are helping to bridge the gap between young and old people in the community.

NY1: Jackson Heights Merchants Create Events In Pedestrian Plaza

From NY1: By Agnes Chung

After being in an uproar over their new pedestrian plaza, Jackson Heights merchants are now working to create events in the plaza.

AMNY: Gay Rights Activists Join Campaign to Save Historic Soho Townhouse

From AMNY: By Tim Herrera

About two dozen people gathered Wednesday to ask the city to reconsider whether 186 Spring St. - which holds a significant place in the history of gay rights - deserves landmark status, which would prevent its possible demolition this year.

Queens Councilman Daniel Dromm, along with Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, State Sen. Tom Duane and reps for some city gay rights groups, pleaded for the city to grant the building landmark status, staving off potential plans from new owner Stephane Boivin of Nordica to turn the building into condos and retail space.

"The contributions of the people who lived in this building were ... major, groundbreaking, earth-shattering, history-making contributions" to gay rights, Dromm said.

He added: "We must have this here for future generations."

The building, constructed in 1824, housed leaders of the gay rights movement in the 1970s, including Jim Owles, the city's first only gay candidate for public office, and Bruce Voeller, who co-founded the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the nation's first such organization. Boivin purchased it earlier this year from Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz.

The NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission has said the site doesn't "rise to the level of an individual landmark due to extensive alterations."

Nordica didn't return a request for comment.

37th Road Merchants Celebrate Eid at Pedestrian Plaza in Jackson Heights

Jackson Heights Turnaround: Business Owners Will Help Maintain Plaza

From Streetsblog: By Stephen Miller

A group of business owners who decried the 37th Road pedestrian plaza in Jackson Heights after it opened have come around and launched a group to act as stewards of the new public space. This turn of events comes after persistent work by Council Member Danny Dromm’s office and local merchants, who are now working together to ensure the plaza is a long-term success. The plaza’s undeniable popularity as a gathering place also hasn’t hurt.

A few months ago, Internet Café owner Agha Saleh and Bombay Chat café owner Shazia Kausar were two of the business owners unhappy with the new plaza. Saleh was quoted in the New York Times saying that it had contributed to crime in the neighborhood, while Kausar told the Times Ledger that soon after the plaza opened in October 2011, her business had dropped and she was having trouble paying employees.

Citing a “gap of communication” between business owners, DOT, and plaza supporters when the project was implemented, Saleh credited months of work by Dromm’s office and DOT to address the business owners’ concerns. “We’re really proud that we brought people on board,” Saleh said.

Now, Saleh and Kausar are working with adjacent business owners to create a new group called Sukhi NY, which will manage what is being called Diversity Plaza. “Sukhi” is an acronym for Social Uplift Knowledge and Hope Initiatives; it also translates from Urdu, Hindi and other languages as “prosperity and happiness.” Council Member Dromm, whose office had until now been coordinating plaza upkeep, joined Saleh and Kausar at an event on the plaza last Friday to announce the formation of Sukhi NY, which is still in its formative stages. Official approval by DOT as a plaza partner is expected to come in September. In the meantime, the organization is kicking off its stewardship of the plaza by hosting a festival that ends today, marking the end of Muslim holy month Ramadan.

“This plaza can benefit the stakeholders who depend on this place for their livelihood,” Saleh said.

Saleh and Kausar aren’t the only former plaza opponents to welcome this latest development.

Mohammed Pier, president of the Jackson Heights Bangladeshi Business Association, had been a plaza skeptic. “Our customers come to do shopping, not to sit,” he told Streetsblog in February. Now, he’s welcoming the debut of Sukhi NY. “This is a great day,” he told the Times Ledger. “After months of misunderstanding, we have restored our differences.”

In January, Shiv Dass, president of the Jackson Heights Merchants Association, felt the plaza was hurting businesses. “We made this place a prime area, but now they’re trying to kill us,” he said. “The bottom line is they have to move this plaza.” On Friday, he joined Mohammed Pier at the plaza for the Sukhi NY announcement.

Saleh had some harsh words for some of the reporters who wrote about the plaza. “A lot of press people came in and they took our interviews and they took our quotes and changed our positions,” he said.

After months of the plaza filling with potential customers every day, business owners who once opposed the plaza now see it as an opportunity for growth and are taking a hand in its upkeep. Will reporters stoppretending that it’s a failure?

Times Ledger: 37th Road Plaza Draws Praise

From Times Ledger: By Rebecca Henely

In a capstone to a nearly yearlong fight, City Councilman Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights) and business owners in Jackson Heights announced Friday the controversy around the 37th Road Plaza was essentially over now that the businesses have created an organization to care for the space.

“I have looked forward to this day coming for a very long time,” Dromm said.

Business owners Agha Saleh and Shazia Kausar instituted the new group, Sukhi NY. The organization, the name of which means “prosperity and happiness” in Hindi, aims to both work with the city Department of Transportation to improve the quality of life in the plaza and hold events there to bring the diverse populations of Jackson Heights together.

“This is the best solution,” said Kausar, who is president of the organization and owns the café Bombay Chat. “We will make this plaza beautiful and more people will come.”

Following the findings of a transportation study for Jackson Heights and with the approval of Community Board 3, the city DOT installed a plaza on 37th Road between 73rd and 74th streets in October. After 37th Road was closed, many business owners said they experienced large drops in their sales and witnessed an increase in vagrancy. They raised their problems at multiple meetings with the DOT and members of CB 3.

As the weather became warmer, however, more shoppers and residents began to use the plaza. Sukhi hopes to keep the momentum going by using the plaza as a place to hold events.

From Thursday, Aug. 16, to Monday, Aug. 20, Sukhi will hold a Chaand Raat Festival/Eid Baazar to celebrate the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

“You will see this street further transformed into a beautiful area in honor of those holidays,” Dromm said.

Both Shiv Dass, president of the Jackson Heights Merchants Association, and Mohammad Peer, of the Bangladeshi Merchants Association, said they were glad a compromise had been reached.

“This is a great day,” Peer said. “After months of misunderstanding, we have restored our differences.”

Dromm said he believed a solution was able to be reached because throughout the debate the lines of communication were kept open between those who opposed the plaza and those who were for it. He encouraged all residents, even non-Muslims, to take part in the Eid celebration and enjoy the diverse community.

“We are all in this together, and as Agha said, we are all Americans,” Dromm said. “This is our neighborhood. These are all our shops.”

NY1: Groundbreaking Held For New Junior High School In Jackson Heights

From NY1: By Yasmin Vossoughian

A groundbreaking was held Tuesday in Jackson Heights, Queens for I.S. 297, a middle school expected to be completed by fall 2014. The new school will provide 400 additional seats in District 30 for grades 6 through 8.

Dromm Stands in Solidarity with Sikh Community in Wake of Tragedy

WCBS 880: City Councilman Wants To Silence Ice Cream Trucks In Jackson Heights

From WCBS 880: By Jim Smith

According to a City Councilman, a staple of summer is giving the cold shoulder to peace and quiet in one Queens neighborhood.

“The ringing of these bells over and over and over and over again is really very annoying,” City Councilman Daniel Dromm said of the aggressive ice cream trucks in Jackson Heights. “They’re ringing the bells with that jingle at later times in the evening, like close to 11 o’clock at night.”

He said complaints are up this year.

He told WCBS 880 reporter Jim Smith it’s not just the music. He said trucks are parking on a play street usually off limits to vehicles, idling for hours next to a local park and pumping fumes into the air.

“Have some common courtesy and to respect the people who live in this neighborhood,” he said.

Dromm said he plans to take complaints from residents directly to the commanding officer of the 115th Precinct.

Times Ledger: Dromm distributes $550K to nonprofits

From Times Ledger: By Rebecca Henely

City Councilman Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights) said sanitation and ensuring the success of burgeoning immigrant populations were his priorities when he doled out the $550,000 he received in discretionary funding this year.

“I’ve made a concerted effort to make sure the way I distributed funds represents the diversity of the community I represent,” Dromm said.

The councilman’s district includes parts of Jackson Heights, Corona and Elmhurst.

Dromm’s $550,000 in discretionary funds from this year’s city budget was a significant boost from the roughly $250,000 he received last year. Dromm broke up this funding between groups serving a multitude of ethnicities, both in the neighborhood and on a statewide level.

The largest single item Dromm allocated from his own funds was $60,000 to the Doe Fund. The fund, which employs homeless and formerly incarcerated young people to clean up city streets, will be cleaning the 37th Road Plaza and surrounding areas seven days a week and other areas throughout the neighborhood five days a week, Dromm said.

“That’s a very serious commitment on my part to stressing the success of the businesses in that area,” Dromm said.

The group that received the most money, split up among multiple grants, was the Queens Community House. The organization, based in Forest Hills but with locations in Elmhurst and Jackson Heights, got a collective $78,000 to fund a multitude of services from youth workshops to graffiti cleanup to housing help.

Dromm also gave Jackson Heights-based immigrant advocacy group Make the Road New York $31,000 for efforts to help stop deportations of incorrectly detained immigrants and to fight homophobia and transphobia.

Another of Dromm’s major recipients was the LeFrak City Youth and Adult Activities Association, which got almost $30,000 for academic help and sports activities for young people. Dromm also gave $20,000 to the Queens Lesbian and Gay Pride Committee Inc. to fund the Queens Pride Parade in Jackson Heights, which Dromm helped start.

But Dromm also gave many smaller funds to groups that advocate for a specific minority population. He said he gave grants to groups like Asian Americans for Equality, whose closest location is in Flushing, to assist the growing Asian population in Elmhurst.

The councilman said he is also trying to identify groups that are serving the new populations in his district, like the relatively new Tibetan and Nepalese communities in Jackson Heights.

“They have the cultural competence to do the outreach,” he said of the advocacy organizations.

Dromm said he was fairly proud of the city’s budget overall this year and pointed out that it provided services to immigrants like legal help and English classes, as well as offering services that would make it easier for women to work while raising a family.

“I would call it a progressive budget,” he said.

NY Daily News: Ice cream truck ‘turf wars’ hit sour note

From NY Daily News: By Joe Stepansky

Jackson Heights residents aren’t sweet on playground-invading ice cream trucks or their late-night rounds.

Increasingly aggressive vendors are encroaching on play places and blasting jingles deep into the night, residents said.

But the drivers say that unpermitted push-cart vendors are eating into their sales, prompting them to adopt hard-sell tactics to make ends meet.

“These ice cream truck turf wars have had a negative impact on the community because we have to deal with their negative behavior,” said City Councilman Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights), who asked the police to crack down on the aggressive behavior at a recent meeting with officials at the 115th Precinct.

The Parks Department forbids ice cream trucks from operating near playgrounds unless they have a permit, which is issued through a competitive bid, an agency official said.

But trucks are blatantly flouting the rule, including at Travers Park, polluting the air with emissions, residents said.

In July, a Mr. Softee truck pulled into the 78th St. play street next to Travers Park after moving a barricade, said Kabir Ahmed, 22, a play street supervisor hired by a local civic group.

“I was so frustrated,” said Ahmed, who called the cops after the truck driver refused to leave for three hours. “It’s annoying to smell all that gas. ... That’s a health hazard.”

The Parks Department granted only one vending permit for Travers Park, to Mr. Softee, but it was limited to 34th Ave., an agency spokesman said.

Pushcarts often roll up into the play street, said Ahmed, prompting ice cream trucks to follow.

Increased competition is pushing drivers to the limit, said Soft Ice Cream truck driver, Marco Neira, 52, who has made the Jackson Heights rounds for 23 years.

In other years, Neira said, an average day would yield up to $800 after expenses. This summer, he has averaged $300.

“The illegal vendors plus the [Health Department] inspectors — they’re killing our business,” said Neira. “We work till 10 or 11 o’clock at night to make some money.”

But the post-dusk jingles have neighbors up in arms, said resident Dudley Stewart, 40.

“It’s woken up my kids,” he said.

Ice cream trucks are permitted to play their jingles at any time while in motion, but residents can complain to 311, a spokesman for the city Department of Environmental Protection said.

Dromm urged drivers to use more discretion.

“The competitiveness doesn’t mean people should be rude,” he said.