HE POURS FLUID IN TOKEN BOOTH, FLEES

A would-be copycat poured flammable liquid into a subway token booth in Brooklyn early today, threatening to light it unless he got money, police said. The man fled empty-handed, without igniting the fluid.

The terrified token booth clerk was treated at the scene for a headache and trauma after inhaling fumes during the 12:46 a.m. ordeal on the Franklin Ave. shuttle at Park Place, officials said.

A suspect found seven blocks away at a homeless shelter at Bedford and Atlantic Aves. was taken in for question-ing, police said. It was not believed that he was a suspect in Sunday's fiery attack at another Brooklyn token booth.

Meanwhile, cops last night pressed the hunt for the men suspected of firebombing token clerk Harry Kaufman, who remained in extremely critical condition at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. Doctors have been unable to even attempt surgery or skin grafts because his grip on life is so tenuous, said hospital spokeswoman Kathy Robinson.

Kaufman, 50, who inhaled flames in the explosion that destroyed his token booth, is on a respirator but his badly seared lungs are unable to absorb much oxygen. Doctors fear he may develop pneumonia.

His wife, Stella, kept vigil at the hospital.

Police were seeking three men in the torching at the Kingston-Throop Ave. station in Bedford-Stuyvesant about 1:45 a.m. Sunday. They have identified one of the attackers, and have established nicknames for the other two.

A $ 41,000 reward has been posted for help solving the case.


Courtesy of the NY Daily News
November 29, 1995, Wednesday

Read More...

NYPD TIX BLITZ HITS HATED HOMELESS SITE

The NYPD has taken its "ticket blitz" to the homeless.

Residents of one of the city's most notorious homeless shelters received 228 summonses in a 28-day blitz by the 77th and 79th precincts, The Post has learned.

Cops say the quality-of-life summonses will restore order around Brooklyn's Bedford-Atlantic shelter, but the men who call the shelter home say cops are hitting them with fines on specious charges such as trespassing and loitering.

"We're just out here trying to get work and they give us tickets," said Anthony Diaz, 35, who was hit for "trespass-ing" outside the shelter, although he lives there.

Ernest Smith, 39, got a summons on each of three straight days this month. One was for disorderly conduct and an-other for impeding pedestrian traffic. The third was illegible.

Many of the summonses are dismissed when the men appear in court, but some carry $75 fines.

Police said the clampdown comes in response to complaints from residents who live near the shelter, located in an old armory at Bedford and Atlantic avenues.

"It's our primary quality-of-life location and it's an area that we have to give daily attention to," said Deputy Inspec-tor James O'Connell, commanding officer of the 77th Precinct.

GIMME SHELTER

* 350-bed men's shelter run by city Department of Homeless Services.

* DHS peace officers are stationed within the shelter for security.

* Designed by Isaac G. Perry chief architect of the State Capital in Albany, the
Romanesque structure was origi-nally built for the 23rd Regiment and was one of 29 armories built in New York and Brooklyn between 1880 and 1913.

* Construction began in 1889 and was completed in 1902.


Courtesy of the NY Post
November 19, 2003

Read More...

MONEY'S RACING IN FOR ARMORY SPORTS

When it rains, it pours for the Park Slope Armory.

This spring, Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council pledged $500,000 toward a plan by the nonprofit group Take the Field to turn the long-underused armory into a year-round community sports center.

And last month, Borough President Marty Markowitz set aside $50,000 from his budget to study ways to reuse large parts of the former National Guard home that have sat vacant for years. Markowitz earmarked an additional $500,000 for the armory in next year's capital budget.

Advocates of Take the Field's sportsplex plan cheered the funding for the fledgling project. But supporters ques-tioned why Markowitz decided to fund a new study rather than support a plan already backed by the mayor and Council.
Bloomberg set aside $250,000 for the project in this year's budget. Councilman Bill de Blasio (D-Park Slope) put up the other $250,000.
"We're trying to move ahead into construction as quickly as possible," said Richard Kahan, president of Take the Field, co-founded by Giants co-owner Robert Tisch to renovate school athletic fields across the city.
The castlelike 14th Regiment Armory, on Eighth Ave., between 14th and 15th Sts., houses a homeless shelter and 14 veterans organizations.
Those uses would not be disturbed under the group's plan, which seeks to convert its century-old drill floor into an indoor track with four sports courts. The center would be available for school kids during the day and for community members at night and on the weekends.
Happy for help
"We're more than happy to have the assistance of the borough president's office," said Tyquana Henderson of de Blasio's office. "But we don't want to have money going all over the place. We all want to be together in the end."
Kahan said the project needs about $10 million for its first phase. The group, which also aims to overhaul the Bed-ford-Atlantic Armory in Bedford-Stuyvesant, is working to secure additional funding from private sources and the state.
Officials from Markowitz's office said yesterday they have been impressed by Take the Field's proposal - but they said questions still need to be addressed, such as the project's feasibility and who would oversee the center's programs and upkeep.


Courtesy of the NY Daily News
August 13, 2002, Tuesday

Read More...

A Bold New Rebuilding Plan Grows in Brooklyn

Brooklyn’s notorious Bedford-Atlantic armory — reputed to be the city’s most dangerous homeless shelter — will soon be transformed into a recreational facility, according to one of New York City’s best-known real estate developers.

Richard Kahan, the president and co-founder of Take the Field, a public-private venture that rebuilds athletic facilities at public schools throughout city, has drawn up plans for the armory renovation.

Mr. Kahan told a gathering of about 50 residents in Crown Heights that his organization plans to raise $14 million in public and private funds that will be used to transform the five-story armory building from a 350-bed shelter to a mixed-use facility that will continue to house homeless people but primarily serve as a base for local students and sports leagues. The project, he said, would be part of a new program, the Armory Initiative, to be operated by Take the Field.

Once funding has been secured and detailed architectural plans have been drawn, “we think we can build this in 9 to 12 months,” said Mr. Kahan, who was chairman of the Battery Park City Authority and the New York State Urban Development Corporation. The project, he said, is an extension of his organization’s mission to bring the benefits of sports to city schoolchildren. “This isn’t just an issue of where the kids will play,” he said. “This is an issue about what kinds of lives these kids are going to have.”


Courtesy of the New York Sun (Read the full article here)

Read More...

STATE TARGETS SHADY GUARDS

As the Statue of Liberty guard scandal spreads, the state has moved to fine or revoke the licenses of 21 security compa-nies that allegedly employed ex-cons, grifters and thugs at facilities throughout New York.

At the heart of the scandal is International Services Inc., a California-based security company exposed by the Daily News for hiring ex-cons to guard the Statue of Liberty and Camp Smith, a National Guard facility in Westchester County.

But in the past few days, the state also has charged 20 other companies with employing unregistered or unqualified guards at airlines, shipping and trucking companies, transit facilities, banks and a number of city and state agencies.

The action was triggered by state controller's office audits that found more than 440 guards employed illegally throughout the state.

The investigation is continuing, and more companies may be cited, state officials said.

State investigators said they found no wrongdoing on the part of government officials in the guard debacle. But, they conceded, unscrupulous security companies, which pay many of their guards only a few dollars above minimum wage, are encouraged to cut corners by the state's policy of hiring the lowest bidder. Cutting corners International, for example, had millions of dollars in low-bid government contracts, including a single $1 million deal to provide guards at nine state sites, four of which demanded top security clearances.
"When a company cuts corners, it may find it can't pay for screening or training," said Mark Peters, chief of the At-torney General's Public Integrity unit. "It hires unqualified personnel and may ship them off to facilities that assume they are dealing with honest vendors and getting qualified guards."
Last week, the attorney general filed a lawsuit against International seeking punitive damages and restitution of millions the company allegedly bilked from state and city agencies.
Lax state laws compound the security guard crisis.
Guards in New York have long been required to be fingerprinted and to pass a criminal background check. But in 1994, bowing to industry pressure, the state softened the law to limit screening to crimes committed in New York. Out-of-state criminals, those convicted in federal jurisdictions and illegal aliens easily skirt detection.
Among them was the ex-con at the Statue of Liberty, who managed to get a New York state guard license despite an armed robbery conviction in North Carolina.
The law also exempts certain New York State convictions. The rap sheets of guards at Camp Smith included con-victions for drunken driving and leaving the scene of an accident - but they still had valid guard licenses, though at lev-els lower than required.
Indeed, state regulations are so lax that guards can be hired - and put to work - even before required background checks have been completed, officials said.
New York Secretary of State Randy Daniels submitted legislation in Albany on Thursday to close loopholes in the law. The bill would forbid companies from hiring guards before they have been screened. It would reinstate the re-quirement of a federal fingerprint check and increase fines for using unregistered guards to as much as $10,000 per vio-lation.
In the past, guard companies resisted federal checks because they took too long. But current technology can provide results in 14 days and improvements are soon expected to provide a full screening within as little as two days, said De-partment of State spokesman Eamon Moynihan.
At city homeless shelters, 208 of 450 International guards hired under a $12 million contract were unregistered and working illegally, according to the attorney general's office.
Guards at one shelter beat and robbed a resident, according to the attorney general's complaint. A guard at another allegedly assaulted his supervisor.
Police brass have complained repeatedly of problems with International guards at Brooklyn's notorious Bedford-Atlantic Men's Shelter. The Department of Homeless Services has penalized the company about $150,000 for a variety of contract violations and used its own unarmed police force to bolster weak security. Lack of enforcement A company memo indicated that International "was never in compliance with the contract and never had any intention of being so," according to court papers.
But no action was taken to terminate International's contract until Friday, when the Department of Homeless Ser-vices announced the company was being replaced at the seven shelters it was hired to guard.
In a June 21 letter to the agency, the company asked to get out of its contract because "an act of war . . . perpetrated on Sept. 11, 2001, has made it impossible to prosecute the work required."
In the letter, International's vice president, Bunce Pierce, made no mention of the contract violations and offered no explanation of how the terror attacks affected shelter guards. But he did complain that the department "is severely be-hind" in payment and asked to be "paid in full by June 30."
A department spokesman said the issue was under review.


Courtesy of the NY Daily News
June 30, 2002, Sunday

Read More...