Inflammatory words, but Ojile’s selling outside the Met, not a Mets game. She and co-owner Derek Hunt are banking on a steady stream of sophisticated visitors to make up their rent, the highest of any mobile vendor in the city (just under $110,000, with the price increasing 10% per year). At just $3 per cupcake and $5 per milkshake, Ojile and Hunt have their work cut out for them. That’s why they’re banking on their products to sell themselves.

For cupcakes, there’s Tropicalia, a Tahitian vanilla cupcake with pineapple mousse and salted caramel frosting. There’s the Rich Guy, a mandarin orange cupcake with fig mousse and candied walnut cream cheese frosting. Then there’s the London Lilly, Earl Grey spiced teacakes with sarsaparilla mousse and tangerine butter crème, among other offerings.

Cake and Shake's Derek Hunt and Gina Ojile Test-Baking Their Goodies at LIC. (Pic: Cakeandshakeny.com)

You can also try the milkshakes, where Chef Hunt’s passion for frozen drinks is called into play. His creations include real-fruit offerings like mango and raspberry, as well as ingredients like salted caramel, Arabica espresso and Valrhona chocolate. And if you don’t have a sweet tooth, you can also sample their savory fare, lunch cakes with delicious fillings like ham, chicken and turkey.

Hunt and Ojile also run Culinary Engineers, a consultancy that helps restaurants streamline their business and develop their products and menus. The couple’s combined expertise with business and baking spurred them explore the idea of mobile cupcakes. “I love to bake,” Ojile gushes. “Some people run, I bake. I call it ‘bake therapy.’ So, it’s a natural progression for me to be in baked goods,” she laughs.

Hunt and Ojile designed a menu that would not just be unique but also green-friendly, with all-organic ingredients. “We care enough to buy products that are safer than any other products that are out there,” Ojile says. She added that not only are organic flour, milk and eggs standard ingredients in their creations, you can also be sure the packaging is biodegradable and compostable. And their products will all be housed in two solar-powered carts, one outside the Met and the other hawking its goods at Washington Square Park.

Menu decided, locations picked, biodegradable products procured, the couple is now test-baking their goodies at the Artisan Baking Center, a shared commercial baking space in Long Island City. “I am a big fan of Warm Glow,” Ojile says, referring to the spice cake with carrot pastry cream, golden raisin and coconut cream cheese frosting and candied walnuts. “And last week it was a toss-up between Rich Guy and Whatchamacalit (milk chocolate cake with nougat frosting)…I really don’t know how many calories are in that,” she laughs.

This piece first appeared in Edible Queens.

Image: Wikimedia

At a packed community council meeting on Tuesday, deputy inspector Paul Vorbeck of the 114th Precinct and his colleagues briefed the community on steps taken to curb the growth of crime in the area. Revealing the year-to-date crime figures, Vorbeck stated that overall crime in the area was down less than one percent, while rape was down 30 percent. Grand larceny had dipped 17 percent, but he noted that there was an increase in burglaries — which had spiked to 32 percent.

Vorbeck told residents not to be alarmed by the statistic and reassured them that having more police on the Astoria beat would help curb the rise in burglaries. He also cautioned residents to be aware of their surroundings, not to leave their rear entrances unlocked, and to report any suspicious activities in their area.

Citing success capturing suspects in connection with recent incidents, Vorbeck reported that Jesus Fernandez, a 23-year-old suspect who attacked an 81-year-old grand father on 47th Street and Broadway to steal his car, was apprehended by the police. Fernandez, allegedly robbed Mayer Behmoiras just outside the door of the fifth-floor apartment, viciously beating the man and fracturing his skull. Behmoiras was admitted to the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Center at Mount Sinai Hospital and was reportedly unable to walk.

In another case, a livery cab driver was murdered by two other men in Long Island City. Suspects Gregory Johnson, 32, and Auther Latten, 22, were charged with murder. “They thought they could just get away with the crime,” Vorbeck said.

For residents in Norwood Gardens, who saw a rash of car break-ins and stolen GPSs, there was some good news too, as the man suspected of stealing the instruments had also been nabbed. Gary Yergarian, 29, was charged with a felony and several misdemeanors for stealing GPS units from two vehicles.

The police, however, are still seeking the public’s assistance in finding two suspects wanted for robbing a Dunkin Donuts located at 33-26, 21st St. on April 22. Both suspects entered the store in sweatshirts, armed with a handgun and demanded money. Vorbeck said anyone with any tips should call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS (8477) or text 27437 (CRIMES) followed by TIP577. All calls are confidential.

For residents around 30th Avenue who have been complaining about the increase in noise and fights in the bars around the area, Vorbeck said their concerns regarding deteriorating quality of life will be addressed. He said that establishments that have been particularly troublesome will be scrutinized further as they renew their liquor licenses.“We can’t have people shooting and fighting in these bars,” he said. “We will review their licenses. We can’t have such establishments in the area.”

The deputy inspector said he had enough officers in his precinct to deal with any crime. Countering Councilman Peter Vallone Jr.’s concern that Albany’s budget cuts would hamstring the local police force, Vorbeck stated he had about 200 cops at the precinct. “Sure, I’ll take more cops if they give them,” but he pointed out that there was no statistical relation between the number of officers on the streets and the amount of crime.  “Many years ago, there were cops in the precinct, but there were more crimes too,” he said.

Police officers from the Transit Authority too, made a brief presentation on subway safety. They urged passengers to be wary of the electronics they use on the subway, “not have their heads buried deep into their phones,” and not to use their iPhones by the subway door, as they risk being snatched by someone outside. The officers also reminded passengers to be wary of other riders and keep an eye out for pick-pockets.

Several residents at the meeting said they were satisfied with the officers’ presentation, saying overall they felt safe living in Astoria. Vinne Marsanico, a resident of 47th Street said while Behmoiras’ assault “shook him up a little,” he felt the area where he lived in was “pretty quiet.” “The 114 does an outstanding job,” he said. There are cops everywhere. You can see them go up and down the street. They respond very quickly.”

That sentiment was echoed by Daniela Mastrogiacomo, a resident of 37th Street who said that while she avoided walking alone at night, Astoria was still a safe place. “Of course, these events make me concerned,” she said. “I don’t want to be on astreet by myself when something happens,” she added.

Agnes and Vincent Maniace, who have lived in Astoria for more 80 years, remarked that while their neighborhood had changed over the years, they felt comfortable in their area. “We have nice neighbors; we have known each other for years,” Agnes Maniace said. “I call and tell a friend if I am out. They keep an eye out on the house for me then.” Commenting on the reported rise in crimes, Vincent Maniace added, “No matter where you go, there will always be break-ins, always be crimes.”

This piece first appeared in Queens Chronicle

The bullet shattered her kitchen’s upper window and narrowly missed her son, who had just risen from the table. “It sounded like a bomb,” Peters recalled, adding that while no one was hurt, the entire family was shaken.

“My five-year-old grandson kept throwing up all night, saying ‘I don’t want to be shot nanny, I don’t want to be shot.’”
Peters was one of the 50 residents that showed up at a rally on Thursday at Latimer Gardens Community Center, to protest the rise in gang activity that led to the shooting, drug dealing and prostitution in the area that is bordered by 34th and 35th avenues, Linden Place and Leavitt and and 137th streets.

Longtime residents milled angrily outside the newly renovated community center whose top window too had also been blown out in the April 3 shootout.

The apartment complex was built in 1970 and consists of four 10-story buildings with more than 400 apartments and 700 residents. The residents stated there had been a “360-degree change” in the amount of crime in the complex. “What a change it has been,” said resident Joan Snowden, who has lived in the complex for four decades. “It was a beautiful place, nobody would bother you. But now, no one can even go to the playing area.”

Snowden’s sentiments were echoed by resident Lorna Dotson, who said that shootouts like the one Peters experienced were becoming increasingly common. She claimed residents heard gunshots as often as twice a week. Others like Carol Pagan alleged it is not just gang activity outside, but that people also regularly break into the building’s main lobby. She said prostitutes in the area come in and use the hallways and elevators as bathrooms. “The prostitutes make a mess all over,” Pagan said. “And the building takes a long time to fix it.”

Another resident complained that 34th Avenue is unsafe once the sun goes down, adding it is very easy to get caught in the gangs’ crossfire. Others said that a new hotel built right outside the complex also made matters worse as the prostitutes often use it as a base.

With the drug dealers, prostitutes and increased gang activity, more than one resident compared the current situation at Latimer Gardens with the movie “New Jack City” — a 1991 crime thriller in which drug lords convert an entire apartment complex into a crack house.

Latimer resident Donald Wiggins, who helped organize last week’s rally with Councilman Peter Koo’s office, said the police are investigating the April 3 incident, adding the incident is “not unusual and not unexpected either.”

At the rally, residents complained to Koo and asked for increased police patrols in the area. “We need them to come and walk the premises,” Dotson said. “They say we are a low-crime area and that we don’t need protection. But we do.”
Residents allege that illegal occupants in the building deal drugs, causing a lot of strangers to troop in and out. “We have kids here, running around,” said one resident. “Do we really want them to see all this?” she asked, referring to the drug activity.

Currently two officers from the 109th Precinct patrol the area, but residents say they still feel unsafe; asking instead for protection from the Housing Authority. They said complaints to NYCHA and the precinct often go unheeded.
Koo, meanwhile, said he is going to petition NYCHA to install security cameras in and around the buildings, explaining that “security cameras would discourage gang activity. It won’t solve the problem, but it will discourage troublemakers.”

He added that building residents also should take greater responsibility and in some cases, stop harboring troublemakers. “Drugs and prostitution are not good for any area,” Koo said. “We want role models, not drug dealers.”

The 109th Precinct did not comment on the issue, despite repeated calls.

This piece first appeared in Queens Chronicle

A photo composite showing various break-ins over the past few weeks in Astoria (Credit: Donnelly Marks)

Residents of Norwood Gardens in Astoria have been advised to keep a close check on their cars and GPS, after a rash of auto break-ins has made them nervous about leaving anything valuable in their cars.

Residents report that areas around 35th, 36th and 37th streets at 30th Avenue have been the worst affected, with the Norwood Neighborhood Association estimating that there has been at least one break-in per night over the last few weeks.

Residents point out that the crimes spike over the weekends, when an influx of outsiders crowd bars and restaurants in the busy 30th Avenue commercial area.

Pearl Thomas was affected when her boyfriend’s parents’ luxury 2007 Audi was broken into. “You know, it’s embarrassing,” Thomas said. “I’ve lived in Astoria for the last seven years and they’ve [the boyfriend’s parents] visited us before and nothing happened. And now, we move into this area and the car gets broken into,” the 36th Street resident said.

The Audi was parked on 36th Street between 30th and 31st avenues when the incident occurred in the last week of March. Luckily for Thomas, the perpetrators didn’t walk away with too much, except for a beloved CD with a collection of sheet music.

Thomas thinks thieves were probably looking to steal the car’s GPS, but couldn’t get their hands on it, as the instrument is built into this particular model.

However 24-year-old John Wagner wasn’t quite so lucky. The photographer who works in New Jersey had his brand new Toyota Corrola broken into twice this year. “It was the first day of my job,” Wagner said. “I had come back from the weekend and get into the car. I keep a few granola bars in the car and I found they were all strewn on the passenger seat,” he said. This is when he noticed his GPS was gone. The next month, his car was broken into again.

Norwood Neighborhood Association’s Donnelly Marks says while these incidents continue to rattle residents, they don’t get reported enough to police. “People need to call 911,” she said, adding that it normally took the cops 40 minutes to get to the scene as it isn’t a high-priority crime. “People are usually in a hurry because it’s a workday — so it doesn’t get reported,” she added.

The break-ins also go unreported, said Marks, as auto insurance doesn’t normally cover the damage. She estimated that the crime rate in Astoria was higher than reported due to unreported break-ins.

While residents have been urged to be more vocal in reporting the misdemeanor crime, some Norwood residents have taken to protecting other cars from a similar fate. Wagner gathered a few other neighbors to form the 36th Street Crime Fighters, a crew that patrols the streets and puts fliers on cars that look like they might be vulnerable to being broken into repeatedly. Cars with prominent GPS on display get notices first. “If you have any evidence of GPS showing on your dashboard, your car will be broken into,” the fliers warn, urging drivers to take their GPS, holder and charger with them each time they leave the car. “We want [Council member] Peter Vallone Jr. to put up security cameras in the area,” Wagner said.

Vallone has said that while the wait for security cameras may be a long one, residents may add cameras to their private properties. “Nobody should leave GPS or any indication that a GPS exists, in their cars,” Vallone said. “I discussed this issue with Inspector Vorbeck at 114th Precinct and we’re encouraging residents to put up more private cameras, take more care with their GPS and cooperate with the police; and allow them to take fingerprints when the car is broken into.

“Often people are in a hurry to leave for work and they say they can’t wait around.” Vallone added that while the police promised increased patrolling of the area for now, Albany’s budget cuts might prohibit that. When asked who might be behind the break-ins, Vallone said he was skeptical that 30th Avenue revelers had anything to do with the rise in crime, saying people who wanted to enjoy a dinner out weren’t likely to be stealing GPSs.

This piece first appeared in Queens Chronicle

In Queens, the MTA proposed not just eliminating the W subway line and numerous bus routes, but also city-wide cuts in Access-a-Ride and the termination of 585,000 subsidized student MetroCards. Jay Walder, the chairman of the MTA and other board members sat stoically through the hearings as disgruntled commuters held up signs protesting the proposed cuts and chanted “Enough is enough” and “No more tolls.”?

Local politicians, including Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) urged the MTA to consider other alternatives, apart from service cuts and fare hikes — asking the transit authority to make better use of federal stimulus money to bridge the budget gap.

The agency has received more than a billion dollars in stimulus money, but a chunk of that cash has already been earmarked for a variety of projects, including upgrading stations in Brooklyn, completing the Second Avenue line and building the Fulton Street transit center in Manhattan.

Earlier in the day, Quinn and other politicians delivered a petition signed by 41,000 commuters to the MTA, protesting imminent fare hikes and service cuts.  “People are sick and tired of paying more and more and getting less and less,” she said.

Councilmembers Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Astoria) and Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside) were among the Queens politicians who stressed how their districts were going to be hit.  “How dare you toll and tax our bridges and beaches when you are giving raises and free rides to family and friends,” Vallone said.

Talking about how 7 train service cuts were damaging commerce in Western Queens, Van Bramer said the “continuous disruption of the trains is a window into our nightmare.” Referring to the cuts in Access-a-Ride, he said: “Locking our disabled and senior citizens in their homes is just not right.”

However it was Jimmy Vacca (D-Bronx), chairman of the council’s Transportation Committee, who elicited a raucous response from the crowds as he rattled off zingers like: “Mass transit is no longer for the masses.” “We are headed for a train wreck,” he said as people chanted “Enough is enough.”

However, the hearing took on a more somber tone when commuters went to the microphone. “How do you have the audacity to eliminate student fares,” one resident asked, “when 65,000 MTA employees each gets a free ride?” referring to a newspaper report that indicated the MTA handed out almost 15,000 MetroCards to its retired employees and several thousand more to its current employees, costing the agency millions of dollars each year. The resident complained that with the MTA also reducing the number of personnel at each station, the city was losing its vital “eyes and ears.” “We have had so many foiled terror plots,” he said, adding “why would we even want to think of that?”

Another Queens resident, Julio Mora, sat observing the heated proceedings, clutching a yellow piece of paper that indicated he had signed up to speak at the public hearing. The Flushing resident spends more than an hour and a half each way commuting from Queens to Tribeca every day and was particularly agitated by the proposed elimination of student MetroCards that would affect his family’s finances. Mora’s daughter, who attends Bayside school, was hit by the service reduction on the Q31 bus route. “Who was the genius that wasted 6 million dollars renaming the Triborough Bridge when we could have used the money for the MTA?” he asked.

Jacob Laite, a resident of Rego Park, sat in the back of the room with his buddies — waiting to make his voice heard about the proposal to discontinue the Q74 bus. Recovering after an operation on his spinal cord, Laite said he would often wait long periods for the bus. A political science student at Queens College, Laite said he was often late to class and had started resorting to hitching rides from friends now.

But the most emotional protest was made by 17-year-old Flushing resident, Aleksandr Rozentsuit. Suffering from a speech impediment, he begged the MTA via the sign-language interpreter to reconsider the service cuts, especially in the disability service Access-a-Ride. “I have a few friends who use the service,” he said. “Sometimes the vans are not clean and they get left in places a little short of their destination. They feel very scared,” he added, making it clear that the service cuts would strike a huge blow to anyone looking to get anywhere in the city.

This piece first appeared in Queens Chronicle

I.S 44 building, seen here, is expected to house five schools this Fall (Pic Courtesy: Andrew Schwartz for West Side Spirit)

Despite the urging of District 3’s Community Education Council, the Department of Education said it was not possible to increase the number of grades at P.S. 452, a new school slated to open in the I.S. 44 building on West 77th Street in fall 2010.

The department is planning to start three kindergarten classes at the school, but the parent council wants that number increased to five. The move, the parent council argues, would help ease pressure at nearby crowded schools, especially P.S. 87 and P.S. 199, both of which are far above capacity. The department, however, shot down the proposal, saying at an impassioned Feb. 24 meeting that I.S. 44’s facilities could not support any more children.

Per department guidelines for any significant changes to school buildings, the Panel for Education Policy will have a final hearing to approve the new school April 13.

The new school would at least temporarily share space with four other schools: the Anderson School, which will shrink from three classes a year to two; the Computer School; J.H.S. 44, which is being phased out; and West Prep Middle School, which is expected to relocate in September 2011. Elizabeth Rose, a representative from the department’s office of portfolio planning, stressed at the meeting that the new arrangement would be a tight squeeze.

“Even though we relocated West Prep to another facility, the school’s capacities don’t change,” Rose said. “We can’t open five kindergartens. Three is the maximum capacity we can fit in this building.”

P.S. 452 is not accepting direct applications for the 2010-2011 school year. Families are being instructed to apply to their zoned school and once the March 12 deadline for kindergarten applications passes and schools process new students, the department will work with the parent council to decide how P.S. 452’s seats should be distributed.

Deborah Lopez, a parent with a child at Anderson, agreed that though demand far outstripped supply, the department should limit the number of P.S. 452 classes to three.

“The new school is welcome in this building,” she said. “But please understand that five schools is a lot of schools in this one building and children in all the schools are going to be affected.”

Lopez worried that the arrangement would adversely impact children’s access to the gym, libraries and the playground.

But many other parents were dissatisfied with the plans, and accused the city of not doing enough to address population growth and subsequent school overcrowding.

“The new school is a stop-gap measure, but it is not really stopping any gaps,” said Noah Gotbaum, chair of the parent council.

He noted that that while 75 families would have access to the new school, there would still be at least 200 other families who won’t be able to send their kids to zoned schools this coming school year.

“Parents deserve to get elementary seats in the zone where they live, or where their kids go to school,” he said.

One idea that has been floated is to relocate the Anderson School, a gifted program that has citywide admissions and could, in theory, be sited anywhere.

But the department rejected the idea of moving Anderson, which was previously housed on West 84th Street with P.S. 9.

“Our recent actions in District 3, including the relocation of the Anderson School, have resulted in a significant gain in elementary school seats for the district. We believe the Anderson School is currently in a facility extremely well suited to the needs of its students and the community, and it would not be productive to move the school twice in such a short period of time,” said Jack Zarin-Rosenfeld, a department spokesperson, in an email.

Eric Shuffler, who is looking for a kindergarten spot for his child, said the overcrowding issue is an “insult to parents.” Marcy Drogin, a prospective parent at P.S. 87, added it was “unacceptable” that the school was crowded and demanded there be enough seats at P.S. 87 to serve all local families.

“I would say that parents have grown weary of the DOE’s opaque processes, poor planning and short term solutions,” said Beth Servetar, co-president of the Parent’s Association at P.S. 87, which functions at 120 percent capacity.

Gary Anthony Ramsay, a former NY1 reporter and prospective P.S. 199 parent, was annoyed at the department’s suggestion that parents be patient, should their child be waitlisted at a school.

“In this economy, no one is going to move away or put their kid in a private school,” he said. “This is our version of the Titanic,” he continued. “The iceberg has already hit the ship—when are we going to make things happen?”

This piece first appeared in West Side Spirit.

REchirp.com works with a similar concept: Interested buyers or renters go to the website, browse the listings and make a bid or a “chirp.” If your chirp is accepted by the owner, you get to start negotiations.

REchirp creators Marc Blum and Andrew Green came up with the idea after years of living in New York and moving from apartment to apartment.

“It was always a tedious process to find an apartment—dealing with brokers, Craigslist, the New York Times. And we thought there should be an easier process of finding real estate in the city,” said Blum, who has a background in both online and traditional advertising.

The childhood buddies were raised on the Upper East Side and currently live at Normandie Court, on East 95th Street, with their families. Figuring that people bid to get the best rates on insurance, hotel and car prices, the duo guessed that people would probably also be willing to bid to buy or rent an apartment.

Combining Blum’s background in advertising with Green’s previous work in technology and consulting, they came up with the idea for the real estate website. After working on the start-up for almost two years, REchirp went live a few months ago. The site, now Green and Blum’s primary endeavor, has four full-time employees and is run out of an Eighth Avenue office.

“The biggest differentiator of www.rechirp.com is that when a user searches for a property, they do not search by price,” Blum said. “The idea behind the site is that when a user sees a property they are interested in, they submit a ‘chirp,’ which is a dollar amount they would be willing to pay for that apartment.”

The creators hope that users can submit chirps anywhere from 10 percent to 40 percent below the listed price. This would give the broker an incentive to work with the bidder and start negotiations at the chirp amount.

Unlike Bid on the City, the bids at REchirp are non-binding, and people can make as many bids as they want on different apartments. Thirty days after the property is listed, the site holds an auction—the first of which took place this month—in which buyers have to make a winning bid in half an hour. The bidding increments increase from $50,000 to $250,000 and the site gives the winning bidder 48 hours to make a down payment in escrow. Bid on the City also positions itself more as a high-end marketing firm for properties, rather than an auction house, and it is geared toward foreign buyers.

REchirp, meanwhile, hopes to cater exclusively to New Yorkers.

“I think the true distinction between us and them is that our chirps are not binding,” Blum said. “Moreover, we have thousands of listings that a home seeker can submit a chirp on, while there are never more than just a handful at a time with Bid on the City.”

So far, REchirp has almost 4,000 listings, mostly from Manhattan, and Green and Blum hope to add properties from across the city as the business grows. They are already working with nine brokerage firms.

Real estate brokers, meanwhile, are eyeing the new service with some skepticism.

“If people are putting bids without any financial commitment,” said real estate broker Joel Maskovitz, “they are not locked in. If thousands of people bid for fun, I am not going to pay to download false leads,” he said.

Brokers, he argued, already work to negotiate the best prices for owners.

“It would be bad for me to talk to anyone who is bidding low,” he said.

Michelle Araujo, a broker who works with NYC Vertical, pointed out that for the minimal fee of listing one property on Craigslist, she often gets hundreds of queries, many of which turn into customers or good leads. Without an in-depth knowledge of the city real estate market, she added, most bidders would be shooting in the dark on a site like REchirp.

Blum and Green, meanwhile, agree that their users have to have a certain sophistication to use the website. They say the service has been designed by New Yorkers for New Yorkers, and caters to savvier renters. They declined to specify exactly how many deals have been made through the site so far, but said that REchirp has helped a few home-seekers find an apartment of their liking.

“Our goal is not to replace Craigslist, New York Times or anyone,” Blum said. “Anyone who is online will go to a bunch of sites [while apartment hunting]. We are hoping REchirp is one of them.”

This piece first appeared in Our Town

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The Deluccas were one of hundreds of families in LeFrak City whose rents increased more than $10 per room per month, starting this month — and many say the spike is more than they can afford. More than 200 people turned up at St. Paul’s last week to voice their displeasure about the changes and discuss what they can do to stop further hikes.
“I am a single mother,” said Delucca, who lives in a three-bedroom apartment and now must pay nearly $34 more than in the past. “How am I going to pay for any rent increase?”

The rent hike was instituted to help cover the cost of renovations, which took place last year. The 20 buildings in LeFrak City, each of which houses some 250 apartments, were all outfitted with new elevators. The LeFrak Organization, which owns the complex, filed a Major Capital Improvements application with the state’s Division of Housing and Community Renewal, in hopes of gaining permission to pass on some of the costs to tenants. So far, the city has approved the request for just one building, the London, but it may sanction rent hikes for the other buildings in the coming weeks.

Rent in the London building is going up $11.31 per room per month, though senior citizens and disabled persons qualifying for rent increase exemptions won’t have to pay more. LeFrak declined to comment and also wouldn’t say how much the renovations cost.

This isn’t the first time LeFrak has raised rents, but residents say the amount of increase is much higher than previous hikes. “In the past, LeFrak would pass on three- or four-dollar rent increases, so people shrugged it off,” said Lester Youngblood, president of the LeFrak City Tenants Association. “But now, its almost twelve dollars per room. Imagine what your hike would be if you had a three- or four-bedroom apartment. … People are just stunned.”

State Sen. Hiram Monserrate (D-East Elmhurst), who was present at Thursday’s protest, said that although the city has approved the rent increase for the London building, it’s still worth fighting. “This is a chance for us to protest possible increases in the other buildings too,” he said.

Robert Jean Michel of the DHCR urged tenants to pay attention to their mail, telling them to look out for the rent increase notification. “Tenants must react to the increase and bring it to our attention,” Michel said. “Otherwise the DHCR will approve the landlord’s MCI application, thinking no one was against it.”

“LeFrak pursues MCIs very aggressively,” said Susan Gibson O’Gara, the supervising attorney at the borough’s Legal Aid Society. “Don’t ignore it.” Ryan Napoli, an attorney who works with the Bronx Defenders, said LeFrak City is well within its legal rights to ask for an MCI and impose a rent increase, but he urged tenants to be proactive in opposing future hikes. Tenants who receive rent increase notifications can challenge them by filling out a form with the DHCR within 45 days. If they get nowhere with the DHCR, they can appeal their cases to state Supreme Court.

This piece originally appeared in the Queens Chronicle

The Associated Press reports that Monserrate apologized for any discredit his conduct brought to the Senate, but he said Tuesday’s vote was depriving voters of their right to choose a representative. His attorney said Monserrate will file a federal lawsuit challenging his removal and his lawyer was quoted as saying they will seek court orders from removing him or conducting a special election to replace him. NY Governor David Patterson has already said he will call a special election for March 16 to fill the Senate seat.

Meanwhile, Monserrate will continue to fight his criminal conviction for dragging his girlfriend through his apartment lobby. The couple later told officials that she was taken to the hospital to treat a cut on her face that was caused by a glass, Monserrate was holding earlier that evening. He was sentenced for the misdemenour to three years probation, community service and counselling.

The reactions were swift coming in from the political and non-political arena. Women’s groups like NOW NY rejoiced, releasing  a statement immediately–calling the expulsion a “victory for women across NY state,” and Albany seemed to be doling out punishment for a man who was instrumental in creating a political stalemate in July.

Monserrate served just 13 months as a state senator, as the New York Times pointed out, during this time, both the GOP and the democrats found him to be a useful bug to have in the bed. 

The New York Times writes:

He was elected as a Democrat in 2008, when the party gained a majority in the Senate for the first time in decades. Six months after taking office, he switched sides with Senator Pedro Espada Jr., who was given various emollients and a splendid title by the Republicans so that they could recapture control of the Senate.

A week later, Mr. Monserrate jumped back to the Democrats — who rewarded him by ousting a Monserrate enemy, their majority leader, and giving him a committee chairmanship, which came with a $12,500 stipend.

A fitting end to a political double-crosser who also happens to be physically abusive? The senator plans to file a federal lawsuit challenging his expulsion.

Here is more on what lies ahead for Hiram Monserrate.