Results tagged “freshmeadows”

An elderly Manhattan diamond merchant with business and health problems shot and killed his 78-year-old wife in their bed yesterday, and then fatally shot himself in the chest, according to investigators. Police found the couple in their Fresh Meadows home after co-workers at Green Bros. Jewelers reported that Morris Green, 76, hadn't showed up at his Fifth Avenue office. The jeweler's business had been hit hard by the economic downturn, and he faced crushing medical bills after a recent heart surgery. But at least one person who knew Green refused to believe it was suicide.

Update, 1:20 p.m.: The Obama administration has declared a "public health emergency" with further cases of swine flu expected to emerge. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano called the declaration of a public health emergency "standard operating procedure."

The Health Department is conducting tests to determine whether swine flu has found its way into our area after 75 students at a Queens high school turned up sick with potential symptoms for the virus. Students from St. Francis Prep in Fresh Meadows are being tested after dozens have reported nausea, fever, dizzyness, aches and pains. One student told NY1, "My chest is really tight, it feels like a 20-pound baby is sitting on my chest. I have shortness of breath, I can't even walk up the steps, and as you can hear I'm stuffy and my coughing is getting really bad."

A speeding U-Haul driver lost control and drove into an Arby's in Fresh Meadows, Queens, killing one customer.

A nine-year-old girl remains in critical condition following surgery yesterday at Long Island Jewish Hospital after an unregistered van carrying school children was struck by a city bus. The accident occurred Friday morning allegedly after the passenger van cut off a Q46 bus in Fresh Meadows, Queens. The bus clipped the van, sending it into a spin, shattering its windows, and ejecting a bench seat into the street.

Earlier this morning, an MTA bus collided with a school van transporting children in Fresh Meadows, Queens. Details of the accident are thin, but initial reports say that up to 9 people are injured, most of which are children. The collision occurred just after 8 a.m. when the Q46 bus struck the van. The FDNY says that two critically injured children were sent to Long Island Jewish Hospital with one other child. Three other children were sent to Mary Immaculate Hospital and two more people were taken to Queens General Hospital and to New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens.

The family of Daniel Pujdak, the firefighter who fell to his death while responding to a Brooklyn fire Thursday evening, does not blame anyone for the fire. The fire was caused by a cigarette left on a window sill of a loft building that had been illegally converted to residential living.

Yesterday, Transportation Alternatives held a rally at City Hall to draw attention to the recently increasing numbers of pedestrian fatalities on city streets. Last year, 163 pedestrians died, a 4% increase over 2005, and just this past weekend, four pedestrians were killed by vehicles. Relatives and friends of victims joined TA to demand that the city to make streets safer for pedestrians and "strengthen laws against motorists who kill or injure pedestrians" (Metro). Watch the video and hear them speak.

While there are some infants in Gothamist's midst, there are times when we seriously doubt our ability to raise a child. These times are usually when we hear about how expensive college educations are becoming, anything related to an Amber alert, or when we read things like this New York magazine article about an innocent posting about a found hat that went horribly, horribly wrong. The place: An email forum of Park Slope parents. The found object: A colorful, some might say "wacky" hat which someone described as a "boy's hat." And that's when the floodgates opened:

Wondering how such a categorization would feel to a spiky-hat-wearing girl, Lisa wrote, “It’s innocent little comments like this that I find the most hurtful.” A third member responded soon after, saying such political correctness drove her “up the wall,” and a heated discussion ensued. Lisa’s supporters questioned their opponents’ commitment to “the free interchange of ideas and questions”—said one, “I have found in life that when the subject matter is difficult, there is always someone who wants to stifle the conversation”—while an opposing faction expressed facetious dismay that the original poster, who had described the hat as likely belonging to “an older child,” was not more considerate toward “younger children who happen to have large heads.”

This might be the feel-good story of the year: Little girl saves goat from impending death as dinner! A Queens family had purchased a baby goat to slaughter and then cook as part of a birthday celebration for a 2 year-old (that is some birthday... we can't even remember ours), but the goat got loose and decided to run for its little life in Queens. Enter 10 year old Heather Lodico who helped Animal Care and Control chase down the goat, enabling the goat to be shipped to Long Island to live on an animal sanctuary for now - and one birthday-celebrating family to go without a main course. And to make things even cuter, the Lodico family is moving to a farm upstate, which means there might be a chance little Heather could have Meadow the Goat (named after Fresh Meadows, not the Soprano) with her; if not, Meadow will have to fend off the anxious, rough attention of little kids at a petting zoo.

Hani Khalil, Law Student