If you’re heading up the Crossbay Bridge bike/pedestrian path towards Rockaway, you might see this spray painted message: “MO7S.”
If you ignore the signs telling you to walk, not ride, your bike over the bridge, you might come zooming back down the path into Broad Channel.
So you might miss that read ‘upside down’ “MO7S” spells out “SLOW”!
And if you miss that sidewalk sign, you just might miss the next one, which reads “Caution: Pole Ahead.”
After that, the rest is just speed, gravity, and sketchy reading skills taking their course.
Roll carefully, BC.
If it’s Friday, you’ll want to catch Soulshyne at Grassy’s at 10 p.m. The versatile and talented Rockawayband is playing to benefit BC Mardi Gras, and is presented by the “Bubba For Mayor” campaign.
Chris ‘Bubba’ Kalisak is also selling raffles to support the Broad Channel Vollies, this year’s Mardi Gras beneficiaries. The grand prize is….wait for it… $10,000.
And there are 18 smaller cash prizes!
Tickets are $100 each. Only 400 will be sold. You could be a big winner on this one.
Hopefully you enjoyed the Irish shepherd’s pie served up last week Thursday. Keep your eyes out for more events, fundraisers and potentially delicious offerings.
According to BCVFD Chief Ed Wilmarth, it is not too late for competing Mardi Gras campaigns to run out of the Ruffle Bar. Contact Thomas Larkin.
Broad Channel American Legion Ladies Auxiliary, President Janet O’Hare was at the Queens County Convention Luncheon the other week. She is happy to report that “us ladies received eight awards and two plaques.”
“I wanted to thank the community for attending our fundraisers” and supporting the work the Legion does.
Great to see U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell come to Broad Channel to announce the government resiliency grants and tour our own Sunset Cove.
“She asked me a lot about the site,” Dan Mundy Jr. said, “and about the community. She knew about the houses, saw how they were raised up. She was very interested in how the island was formed.”
In two weeks, the Shad Creek Association will hold the 20th annual “It’s A Fluke!” fishing contest. That’s Saturday, July 12.
The fee is $25 per angler for the contest. There will be prizes for the largest fluke. There will also be a Calcutta for largest Sea Robin, with $5 per angler.
Be ready to sign-up starting at 5 p.m. on Thursday, July 10, or Friday, July 11. There will be a $10 fee per boat for the total weight of three flukes. Plus raffles. Check out “Shad Creek Assoc.” on Facebook for more information.
This just in from the BC Civic Association: “Traffic enforcement agents have been seen on a regular basis issuing tickets for vehicles with expired inspections and registrations. Check your vehicle’s registration and inspection.”
The road through Broad Channel is paved with good community effort. Early last week, work on fully repaving Cross Bay Boulevard had stopped. Apparently, there was supposed to have been some problem with permits having expired. That left most of the road milled, bumpy and rough and only in small part paved. The BC Civic and Dan Mundy Jr. got on that issue right away.
By Friday, the southbound side of the Boulevard was done. By Monday, most of the northbound side was done. No doubt, before the end of the week, the whole thing will be done and maybe even the lines will be laid down.
I am sure residents and visitors alike will be happy to see the traffic hold ups go. Also mufflers of all sizes will not be bouncing across the road after having been knocked loose.
BC Civic Association meetings may be stopping for the summer, but the BC Civic is always on the job.
Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens will have a person at the Broad Channel library between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. on the first and third Tuesday of every month. They are there to help anyone hit by Hurricane Sandy. As the Civic newsletter noted “Answering your questions about recovery, developing a plan to address your needs, connect you with appropriate community resources and assist you with applications for programs you may be eligible for.”
Finally, you probably read that, according to the Daily News, Broad Channel Station has the highest crime rate in the subway system. Some people might shortcut that to mean that Broad Channel is crime ridden. But that would be like thinking say Forest Hills is awful because there is crime on their underground subway platform. (No knock on Forest Hills by the way. That was only an example.)
Yes, the station, which is elevated and behind a sizable concrete wall, has a problem. Broad Channel the neighborhood is not without crime here and there, but in steep contrast probably has a lower crime rate than most of the entire city.
Of course, people complain and point and pat themselves on the back (which the Daily News did several times in that article by the way) for pointing things out.
But the real point in life is, well, what are you going to do about it?
I have no doubt that the people who actually get things done, as opposed to complaining and pointing, have already been working on this.
When I was up there last Monday night there was already increased police presence, with an officer on observation up top, a patrol car just outside the station and who knows how many plainclothes officers on deck.
Like many places, over a century, life has handed Broad Channel its share of crap. Most recently, nearly the entire town was fully underwater during the hurricane. More times than you can imagine the city has literally tried to push the town off the island.
You’ll notice the town hasn’t left. Why? Because somebody from BC always looked and said, “Ok, this is what we’ve got. Now what are we going to do about it?” And they did it.
Where would we be without those uniquely BC people? Gone. A long time ago. Hasn’t happened yet!
Got BC news? Send to workingstories@aol.com.
Thanks for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment