Results tagged “forestpark”

With all the talk of pet cruelty and an otherwise quiet weekend of New Yorkers enjoying the mild weather, the Post checks in on that nagging topic we probably haven't thought enough about lately: animal sacrifices around town. Longtime Parks Ranger Joe Puleo told the paper that Forest Park and Highland Park are the hotbeds for the violent rituals performed for reasons such as "devil worship to voodoo to offerings for good luck." Puleo then put on his creepy voice for the paper and said, "They are never caught, because they are careful, and they never do it during the day. They do it at night when no one is around." A Forest Park man recently discovered a rooster and goat head while walking his dog—he called 311. Then things really start getting fun when the paper talks to NYC Parks Advocate founder Geoffrey Croft, who recounts finding a dog shot and eaten by a man. At least Croft is able to sum up the whole madness quite succinctly by saying, "It's a public-health issue, it's disgusting, and it freaks people out with the whole voodoo thing."

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A pedestrian struck at 12th Street and 8th Avenue in Manhattan, a homicide in Brooklyn, and a water rescue in Forest Park in Queens
• Mathieu Eugene showed NY1 his new apartment and says that he was sleeping there before the election; if that's really true, why didn't he say so earlier and why won't he show NY1 the lease?
• In order to avoid any parking ticket squabbles, the city has suspended Monday alternate side of the street parking in anticipation of snow

Start of the school year, start of stories about bad bus drivers. Four year old Lizette Rodriguez, headed to Forest Park Day Camp in Queens, fell asleep in a school bus, and the driver, Maricela Fernandez, left the bus without her, thinking that all the children got off. Fernandez parked the bus, went to get coffee and left for home. But someone walking on the street called 911 after seeing sleeping Lizaette inside, and Fernandez was arrested for child endangerment.

Yesterday, we heard that there had been a fetus found on the grounds of a Queens golf course and the police were investigating the matter. Thanks to the NY Sun, we now know what happened: After a golfer at Forest Park Golf Club saw something "suspcious" in the restroom, employees took a look and called 911, saying that a fetus was found. So authorities responded - cops on the ground, an NYPD chopper, the K-9 unit, the ME's office - in order to find the mother who was presumably on the run. A few hours later, it was discovered that the fetus was not a fetus after all but a sanitary napkin. Now, we don't want to think too much about how a maxi pad could be mistaken for a fetus, and even though an employee told the Sun, "Everyone thought it was a fetus," blood does not a fetus make!

While it's a relief to have the four year old abandoned on a Queens street identified (her name is Valerie Lozado), the other news about where her mother was has met everyone's worst expectations: Monica Lozado-Rivaineira was killed by her boyfriend, Cesar Ascarrunz, who confessed the crime to the police. Ascarrunz says that he had "objected to her staying out all night and to the manner in which she was raising her daughter." On September 24, Lozado-Rivaineiria attacked him with a knife in their Forest Park, Queens apartment, and he tried to defend himself with a pillow, and then she went unconscious (reports say that authorities believe he strangled Lozado-Rivaineira). Ascarrunz said he slit her throat to "create an airway"; with Lozado-Rivaineiria dead, put her body in a trash bag outside the apartment. He dropped off Valery in another Queens neighborhood to be found by strangers, and then dumped the body in another neighborhood two days later. Ascarrunz, an immigrant who had been a doctor in Bolivia but was a porter in the U.S., was arraigned on various charges of murder and child endangerment.

When trying to find out most about Forest Park, which is near Woodhaven, Richmond Hill, and Kew Gardens, Gothamist found the Parks' Department's write-up very interesting, including the fact that it was originally meant to be a place for crowded Brooklyn constituents to relax and was going to be named "Brooklyn Forest Park."

Gothamist imagines that Apollo was trying to get the Bohemian Beer Garden in Astoria, or perhaps the new Lee Bontecou exhibit at the MoMA Queens. We wonder what would have happened if Ming the tiger had escaped his Harlem apartment - a trip to Sylvia's, perhaps?