Courtesy Genting New York LLC

The Aqueduct Racetrack in Ozone Park, Queens is getting a makeover. After several years of battling for the highest bidder, Genting New York LLC celebrated the groundbreaking ceremony amidst politicians and community members for the future site of Resort World, combination racetrack and casino.

Since its opening in 1894, the aqueduct, known as The Big A, has gone from being New York’s busiest thoroughbred racetrack to an empty lot full of memories and dust. Although it has been revived, hosting two races a year, many agree that it is in dire need of the $380 million being pumped into the casino transformation which will include 4,500 slot machines and electronic table games and several dining facilities. The first phase of the project is planned for a completion by May 2011. Political figures including Governor David A. Paterson, boasted of the 1,300 construction jobs and 800 permanent jobs the project will create.

Listen to a part of the Governor’s speech:

However, outside the gates of the racetracks’ rear parking lot stood residents and workers who expressed different concerns. Vendors of the popular Aqueduct Flea Market, open every Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday protested, saying they were being ousted. They believe that once construction starts in November, the hundreds of vendors at the market will be out of jobs. Stephan Friedman, spokesperson for Genting said the flea market will continue to operate through the holidays before making a final decision-a contrast to what some vendors have expressed, saying they have been left in the dark by both Genting and Plain and Fancy Shows, Inc. the Long Island based company that runs the flea market. They aren’t the only skeptics; several reports from New York Daily News and The New York Times question the real beneficiaries of the project.

What many residents believe to be the beginning of a brighter future for Ozone Park, is a nightmare to some.

A Good Change- These residents think the racino will help rebuild the struggling Rockaway Blvd. where the race track is located.

• Micheal McCabe, longtime Ozone Park resident isn’t afraid of the gambling environment coming into the neighborhood.

• Philip Salerno, owner of The Getaway Sports Bar and Grill on Rockaway Blvd. doesn’t think the casino poses any competition on his business.

An Economic Pest- Vendors and some businesses think the Flea Market is too valuable to lose.

• Yvonne Kissoon, vendor for 34 years feels she and her colleagues have been shut out of the process.

• Hazem Kassim, owner of two delis on Rockaway Blvd. doesn’t want to lose the business the flea market brings.

In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is trying to make every school a good option by closing or transforming public schools identified as “persistently lowest achieving.”

Sheepshead Bay High School in South Brooklyn, has been labeled as a low performing school since 2001 when the No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law.

After receiving a quality review by the Department of Education, Sheepshead Bay High will soon find out what changes are in store. The city might close the school or turn it into several smaller charter schools.

While these changes might be efficient for improving the system, they will ultimately affect students the most; and students may not agree with the DOE assessment.

Three students in their senior year talk about how Sheepshead Bay High School is not low achieving, despite what tests show.

In anticipation for her last high school Homecoming, Jamile wishes outsiders’ perceptions of the school could change.

Jamile Henlon by elisestrada

Active in student government, sports, and volunteer organizations, Dimo demystifies the reality of a “persistently lowest achieving” public school.
Dimo Koutsogiannopoulos by elisestrada

With goals of going to college and writing books, Ashley thinks Sheepshead Bay High has served her well.
Ashley Daley by elisestrada
After School-Natsound by elisestrada

State Senator Bill Perkins just released a study on rats in the subways of upper Manhattan.

With bed bugs stealing all the headlines lately, rats have been getting an easy ride in the ongoing debate on the most-hated NYC Pest. Now, however, New York officials have been cracking down on the best way to eliminate the detestable rodent from our subways. For some building a better mousetrap, has never seemed more urgent.

First, some interesting facts from some citywide surveys:

• A recent study by New York State Senator Bill Perkins of the 30^th district (Upper West Side and Harlem) released last week, found that 80% of those surveyed said the rat problem in the subway was severe or in a state of emergency.
• Back in June, Bloomberg’s Board of Health released findings that said rats live inside station walls and not deep in subway tunnels. The leave their holes in search for food, steering clear of supposedly of the third rail.
• According to Perkins, Malaysia represents a worst-case scenario of what could happen in New York City if the rat problem were left to persist unchecked. After a significant spike in Leptospirosis deaths this year, with reportedly 100 deaths so far this year, some parks have been closed due to this vermin-spread disease.

In light of this information, officials have bandied about two solutions on how best to rid the subways of rats. But do they go far enough?

• Senator Perkins presents some solid arguments for a global ban on eating in the NYC subway as a sure-fire way of starving out the rats. He cites rat-free subways around the country and across the globe that are 100% food free.

• The Bloomberg administration and their study acknowledges that littering passengers contribute to the rat problem, and recommends that “refuse rooms” be installed with poison like subway tracks. Also investments should be made in sophisticated trapping systems, ideally if the MTA budget allowed this.

What do you think? Would you agree to stop eating in the subway to avoid seeing rats? Or should money be spent to corner rats where they play in the MTA? What other solutions are out there that NYC could adopt as their own?

A common sight for many U.S. Galaxy S users. (Nicholas Rizzi/CUNY)

Cell phones have become pocket-sized versions of PCs, and, some argue, work better than their larger brothers. They can provide directions, and play music and videos when they work right. However, when they don’t work properly, they can become pests that live in your pocket.

From smaller issues like dropped calls, to bigger problems like giving away confidential information, cell phones can become nuisances very easily.

Here’s some recent stories where cell phones and cell phone companies went wrong:

• The FCC fined Verizon Wireless $25 million dollars, the FFC’s largest in history, after they found Verizon added data charges to costumers without data plans for over three years. Verizon will pay a minimum of $58.2 million dollars in refunds.
• Some banking apps for the iPhone and Android phones were found to have security flaws that allow criminals to easily steal banking information. The companies are issuing updates to their apps to fix the issue.
• Consumer Reports found that Apple’s iPhone 4 lost signal and dropped calls when held in a certain way. The site gave the phone a “do not buy” rating and Apple eventually gave away free cases to fix the problem.
• The high-selling Samsung Galaxy S series of Android phones shipped with the GPS broken. The GPS wouldn’t lock onto satellites, causing many applications like Google Navigation to become useless. The company rolled out patches to fix the GPS, but didn’t completely fix the problem for some.

Is your phone acting up?

But in real life, it’s just creepy. The New York Post recently reported that at least three teachers in New York City public high schools have been fired in the past six months for inappropriate contact with students on Facebook.

“I’m not a gynecologist, but I’ll take a look inside,” read a line on the Facebook profile of Chadwin Reynolds, a teacher at Fordham High School for the Arts in the Bronx.

Reynolds friended at least five female students, making comments like, “This is sexy,” on some of their Facebook photos. He was fired earlier this year, but following in his footsteps were Manhattan substitute teacher Stephen D’Andrilli— who friended several female students, telling one that she was pretty and he wanted to come visit her—and Queens teacher Laurie Hirsch—whose Facebook flirtations with an 18-year-old former student led to a sexual relationship.

With social networking sites further blurring the boundaries between students and teachers, some are calling for the Department of Education to restrict interaction between teachers and students on sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Fox News says “teachers should simply never ‘friend’ their students on Facebook.”  What do you think?

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These four students pass through Times Square every day.

Eliza Ronalds-Hannon’s morning commute:

Judy Le on slow walkers:

Zach Kussin on picture taking:

Paul Bufano on people with maps:

What do you think of the foot traffic?

Created by Eliza Ronalds-Hannon, Paul Bufano, Zach Kussin and Judy Le

for Monday Night Interactive

(Credit: 3-B-S.org)

Meanwhile, the smell of stale trash wafts into your nose as fat rats scurry down below. You’re on a subway platform, but you’re also waiting for the C so it’s twice as bad.

In fact, it’s the worst—the worst subway line in New York City, according to the new “State of the Subways” report card. The Straphangers’ Campaign of the New York Public Interest Research Group released its 13th annual evaluation of the city’s 22 subway lines on Wednesday, and C line commuters have much to complain about.

The C fell below average on five of six categories: “amount of scheduled service, delays caused by mechanical breakdowns and announcements (all three next to worst); regularity of service; and cleanliness,” according to the report.

How do C line commuters assess the Straphangers’ findings that the C is the worst line? Well… They’re not surprised.

“I’m not sure it’s the worst, but certainly in my experience, it’s right up there,” says commuter Joseph Sinzer. “It seems in my experience to break down frequently. It never seems to run on time. The trains aren’t the cleanest. You can’t give it high marks on anything.”

“It’s dirty, it’s slow, and it never comes on time,” says commuter Samba Ba, who uses the line four to five times a week.

“Because the timing, you have to wait forever for the C train. I think it probably has to do with the fact that the availability, especially the weekends, is horrible. After 10 p.m., you have to wait a really long time,” C line commuter Ray Koscinski says.

What’s been your experience with the C line? Is it the worst or are there other lines that infuriate you even more?

Former State Sen. Hiram Monserrate was indicted on Tuesday for federal corruption charges that “accuse him of using workers at a Queens nonprofit group he financed to aid in his Senate campaign,” City Room reported.

As many expected, Monserrate pled not guilty to mail fraud and conspiracy, both of which carry maximum sentences of 20 years.

Monserrate, who was a City Council member at the time, had allocated $300,000 in taxpayer funds to the nonprofit organization LIBRE, the Latino Initiative for Better Resources, and had directed the group to spend $100,000 on his 2006 state senate campaign, according to the indictment papers.

Hiram Monserrate Indictment

As New Yorkers head into the mid-term election, they’ll have a lot of corruption on their minds. Corruption’s been the talk for a while now, especially between gubernatorial candidates Republican Carl Paladino and Democrat Anthony Cuomo. Each candidate has pledged to take care of the capital’s corruption, but do New Yorkers have faith in their determination to rid Albany of the Monserrates?

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Stig Nygaard - CC, Click on the Photo for Stig's Flickr Stream

A teen suicide, several murders, a gang rampage, and an uptick in crime have plagued New York City in the past month and citizens are wondering if it’s a horrible new trend.

Even in small communities, crime is on an upswing. The Local, which covers the Fort Greene and Clinton Hill area, has been reporting on an increase of assaults, robberies and shootings in their small area in Brooklyn. The 88th Precinct said they will increase foot patrols and asked the community for help.

But are measures like this going to help? Or is the situation is turning hopeless?

Tienya B. Smith and Abigail Goldberg are representing for the ladies.

It’s 2010 and sexism isn’t dead, no matter what you’ve read.

Women are on the verge of making up the majority of workforce, but will still earn less. Female voters are being wooed, but recent female candidates have either been portrayed as eye candy or just plain crazy. With everything that’s going on, it seems like it’s not easy being a woman.

That’s why Abigail Goldberg and Tienya B. Smith have established a sisterhood in the Long Island City and Sunnyside, Queens communities. There isn’t any pants swapping, instead this group, called the Strong Women’s Group, plans to have monthly gatherings where women from these two communities can come together to talk about women’s issues.

After the group’s first official meeting at the Long Island City Library, the two ladies sat down with me to talk about strength, the dreaded double standard and why we need more Mary Tyler Moores on TV.

You use the word “strong” in the name of this group. What to you symbolizes a strong woman?

Tienya B. Smith: A woman that’s taking care of herself, that’s taking a stand in her own life.

Who to you is an example of a strong woman?

Abigail Goldberg: The other day we were talking about Vanessa Williams. She overcame adversity and she just continues to be composed and continues to know herself and embrace herself and her fame.

You brought up adversity; do you think that is a necessary component of strength?

Tienya: Most definitely. With everything that’s going on in the economy you definitely have to step up and be a strong person.

In 2010, women are being told they can do everything, but then there’s always that question of can the woman really handle it. Why do you think there is that double standard?

Tienya: The woman is looked upon as being the docile nurturer. When she steps out of that role she gets the B-label. I think that it’s time to say that we can be more than that. That’s why I like Hillary Clinton and what she’s doing. She’s stepping out of that role and not allowing them to limit her. Remember, when she was in a press conference and they kept referring to her husband and she said, “No, I’m the Clinton here.” She’s challenging that every day. I think that’s what women need to do to break that stereotype.

As a kid was there someone who inspired you to be a strong woman?

Tienya: Interestingly, it was my father. When my parents separated I got to live with my father and he said, “You know you really have to learn how to do these things on your own.” He showed me how to change the oil in my car and the tire. I had a mouse in my apartment in college and he said, “You have to take care of that. It’s not fair for you to put that responsibility on your boyfriend.” And he said, “How would you feel if you went over to his apartment and he showed you a sink full of dishes?” That made me think of things differently.

Abigail: Probably, Mary Tyler Moore because she wasn’t the wife of. She wasn’t the daughter of. She wasn’t the mother of. She had her own job, her own career and the sitcom revolved around the workplace. She had her weaknesses and she had her strengths. Certainly that’s not a role model I saw on other TV shows so it influenced me a lot.

Do you think there are any strong female characters on TV now?

Abigail: I think we have more fantasy figures like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I think women are more comfortable seeing strong women in fantasy roles, then every day real roles.

Why?

Tienya: [Every day women] don’t fit in everyday reality. We have Hilary Clinton, but when she steps out of the box, we throw eggs at her.

What is the overall goal for the Strong Women’s Group?

Abigail: Sharing and finding solutions. Even if the feeling is sadness, if at the end of the workshop there’s a bit more feeling of comfort, than the workshop was a success.