PRESS POINTS

A pounding headache

Posted

Stagg Group is filling its neighbors’ stockings with coal this holiday season as pounding and drilling at a Kingsbridge construction site is expected to continue into the new year.

Jay Martino, Stagg’s senior vice prsident of development, told Community Board 8’s land use committee Monday night that work to clear rock from its proposed 3482 Fort Independence St., construction project could be done just after Christmas — but he wasn’t ready to make any guarantees.

“I’m not going to tell you that we are going to be done in four weeks,” Martino said. 

“If I hit a vein of hard rock, that would extend to a month or two months. Rock excavation is very tricky.”

But Stagg wants to move forward on its eight-story apartment building as quickly as its neighbors, Martino said.

“We are sensitive to what the community is going through,” he said. “I don’t live there. I’m not dealing with it on a daily basis. 

“I can only imagine what people are going through.”

Constructions workers at the Fort Independence Street site are using “noise-attenuating hammers” wrapped in blankets, Martino said. Crews also have put blankets up along fences and other areas in an effort to drown out sound.

But neighbors say despite the city’s environmental production department declaring noise levels are within legal limits, they’re still getting bombarded with all the sound of construction nearby.

Once the granite is cleared and vertical construction begins, Martino believes Stagg will have the structure at 3482 Fort Independence St., completed inside of a year.

 

Taking them to court

A regular visitor to Henry Hudson Park got a lesson in New York City’s leash laws — on national television.

James McCarthy, who said he lives near the park off Kappock Street and Independence Avenue, sued a woman for $5,000 over a dog bite — a case that found itself on a recent edition of “The People’s Court” in front of Judge Marilyn Milian.

McCarthy claimed a dog owned by a woman who only identified herself as “Jill” was off its leash, and in the process, bit him in the lower leg. 

While Milian didn’t agree that the small bite was worth so much money — she awarded $500 instead — the retired Florida circuit court judge gave “Jill” a scolding about letting her dog run loose in the park.

The two didn’t have to travel far to settle their legal differences. “People’s Court,” which airs locally on WNYW’s Fox 5, is filmed in Stamford, Connecticut.

 

Native journalist retires at 88

Woody Klein has lived a full life of journalism, and now that he’s 88, he’s decided this is finally the time to retire.

Klein, a native New Yorker who attended Ethical Culture Fieldston School as a kid, is stepping down after 50 years writing a column for the Westport News, a community newspaper located in Westport, Connecticut. 

He’s had a storied career since leaving Riverdale, first as a reporter for the Daily Argus in Mount Vernon before moving on to The Washington Post and later the New York World-Telegram & Sun. 

It was there he earned a Pulitzer Prize nomination for his 10-part series “I Lived in a Slum” in 1965.

Before relocating to Connecticut, Klein was the press secretary to New York City mayor John Lindsay, who led the city between 1966 and 1973.

He continues to live in Westport, according to the publication, with his wife of 55 years, Audrey Klein.

Stagg Group, Jay Martino, James McCarthy, Woody Klein, Westport News, Connecticut, John Lindsay, Michael Hinman

Comments