Community Corner
🗳 3-Vote Margin In Race For District 23 + Queen of Congo Visits Queens
The quickest way to get caught up on the most important things happening today in Queens.
Good morning, Queens! 🍽
As we all work our way through those leftovers, check out today's headlines:
- 🗳 Incumbent Queens Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato may lose the race for Assembly District 23 by a razor-thin three-vote margin to Republican Thomas Sullivan
- 👑 Her Majesty Queen Diambi Kabatusuila Tshiyoyo Muata of the Democratic Republic of Congo visited the appropriately regal Queens College campus on Thursday, Nov. 17.
- 🎨 Maspeth resident and rising artist Kelvin Morel used art to heal from tragedy and in so doing found his calling.
🍃 Breezy with a 🚿 few showers. High: 51 Low: 39.
Here are the top stories today in Queens:
1. Incumbent Queens Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato may lose the race for Assembly District 23 by a razor-thin three-vote margin to Republican Thomas Sullivan. Pheffer Amato, a three-term legislator, is now disputing dozens of ballots in state Supreme Court in Queens over concerns that votes were improperly invalidated by elections officials. The votes in question are absentee ballots that were invalidated due to problems like voters forgetting to sign them or seal envelopes. Sullivan, however, is vowing to contest efforts made by his Democratic rival to reverse decisions made by election officials. "Those ballots were voided by a bipartisan team from the Board of Elections and there were material mistakes on those ballots that that put the integrity of the ballot in question," Sullivan told The Post Thursday.
2. Her Majesty Queen Diambi Kabatusuila Tshiyoyo Muata of the Democratic Republic of Congo visited Queens College campus on Thursday, Nov. 17. and stopped by the lab of biology professor Sebastian Alvarado, who studies a fish endemic to the Congo. While showing the queen a small, hand-held tank holding a Burton's mouthbrooder, a fish that lives in Congo-bordering Lake Tanganyika, the fish gave birth, as if on cue. Queen Diambi is a CUNY alumna — she holds a bachelor's degree from the College of Staten Island — and was glad to be back on CUNY turf for the visit.
3. Rising Queens-based artist Kelvin Morel, who likes to be called Kam, earns a steady living by painting murals for homes, apartments, and small businesses all over New York. The Maspeth resident, who was raised in Ridgewood, Queens, is a street-artist at heart, and has a passion for creating dynamic, evocative images through his eye-catching murals and canvas works. Morel threw himself into art-making in 2009 as part of his healing process after the death of his son who did not survive childbirth. He said he hasn't stopped creating since. Morel is especially inspired by street art and underground artists and takes his artistic cues from Jean-Michel Basquiat, his favorite American artist.
4. Queens resident Jaquan Adams was sentenced this week to a decade in jail, five years post release supervision, for using a gun to threaten a motorist into giving up an open street parking spot in Bayside that Adams wanted for himself. "An argument over nothing more than a parking spot escalated into a life-or-death confrontation because the defendant chose to resolve the dispute with an illegal handgun. He has now been held to full account for his criminal actions," said Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz. The incident in question took place on May 26, 2019 at around 11:48 p.m. when Adams approached a man sitting inside a parked vehicle, displayed a firearm, and threatened to shoot him if he did not move his car from that particular parking spot. The man indeed left the parking spot, only to call 911 with a description of Adams' vehicle moments afterward. When police arrived on the scene, Adams was no longer present — it was then that an investigation was launched.
5. A two-alarm fire erupted in a Glendale bagel shop just after 4:20 a.m. on Tuesday morning, Nov. 22, destroying Glendale Bagels, and causing heavy damage to the building. More than 25 units and more than 100 firefighters arrived at the scene and brought the fire under control by 5:49 a.m. No injuries were reported. The cause of the fire is not yet known, though a preliminary investigation by inspectors from the city's Department of Buildings determined that rear of the two-story commercial building suffered extensive fire damage. The DOB has mandated a full vacate order at Glendale Bagels in the interest of public safety due to the severity of the damage.
🗞 Hungry for more news? 🍴Snack on these headlines:
- Queens leads quick rebound in NYC's new development condo market (AM New York Metro)
- Is Homeownership Slipping Even Further Out of Reach for New Yorkers? (The New York Times)
- Thanksgiving eve violence leaves two dead, one critical in NYC (New York Post)
- Man arrested for fatal shooting of teenage drill rapper in Queens (New York Daily News)
- Circus Vazquez Brings Big Top Fun To Queens (AM New York Metro)
🗓 To Do Today in Queens:
- Love & Hiking Date For Couples (Self-Guided) (7 a.m.)
- Queens Botanical Garden Free Admission Fridays (7 a.m.)
- AO Queens World Cup Watch Party US vs England (12 p.m.)
- Stop Shop & Sit (12 p.m.)
- Chinese Dumplings- In Person Cooking Class (1 p.m.)
- New York Hall of Science Free Hours (2 p.m.)
- Self Expression Through Movement (3 p.m.)
- The New York Winter Lantern Festival – Illuminate the Farm (5 p.m.)
- Here Comes Treble (8 p.m.)
🗣 Queens Chatter:
- 👏 🏆 A round of applause for the 92-year-old chef who cooked 20 turkeys yesterday: "As part of the nearly 350 turkeys my office distributed across Flushing, 20 of them went to the Selfhelp Benjamin Rosenthal Senior Center. On Wednesday, the center's 92-year-old main chef and his team cooked and served them to hundreds of hungry seniors." (Council Member Sandra Ung via Twitter)
- 🦃 Happy belated Thanksgiving from the Richards family: "From the Richards family to all 2.4 million of us in #Queens, we wish you a happy and healthy #Thanksgiving! It's an honor to be your neighbor and I'm eternally thankful to be your Borough President. I can't wait to see all we'll achieve together going forward." (Queens Borough President Donovan Richards via Facebook)
- 🎖Teaching the importance of service on Thanksgiving: "Imparting the importance of service to the next generation is of utmost importance to me as a grandmother. There was no better place to demonstrate that for 2 of my grandchildren than at @NationalAction in Harlem, serving New Yorkers alongside @TheRevAl . Happy Thanksgiving NYC!" (Speaker Adrienne Adams via Twitter)
- 🤔 How to re-achieve a more fundamental relationship between individual consciousness, the earth, and human civilization:""I repeat that all this architecture is an experiment. It doesn't want to be more than this. An experiment with the aim of creating again, within modern architecture, psychic emotions for man, without falling into an empty and theatrical decorativeness. It wants to be the expression of a free will of creation, which—without denying the values of "functionalism"—tries to subdue them under a modern spiritual conception." – Mathias Goeritz. Mathias Goeritz (1915–1990) was a German-born painter, sculptor, architect, and theorist who emigrated to Mexico in 1949 and became a naturalized Mexican citizen. Inspired by our prehistoric ancestors, Goeritz desired to re-achieve a more fundamental relationship between individual consciousness, the earth, and human civilization." (The Noguchi Museum via Facebook)
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That's it for today. See you all tomorrow for another update!
— Emma Radu Fighera
About me: Emma Radu Fighera is a reporter born and raised in Queens, New York. She studied Literature and Studio Art at Hamilton College, where she helped run the only daily publication on campus, The Daily Bull newsletter. This past spring she earned her M.S. from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Have a news tip or suggestion for an upcoming Queens Daily? Contact me at queens@patch.com
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