Community Corner

🚑Astoria EMS Worker Fatally Stabbed On Duty + New Priority Bus Route

The quickest way to get caught up on the most important things happening today in Queens.

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(Patch Media)

Good morning, Queens! 🎶

  • 😔 Rest in peace to killed in action EMS Lt. Alison Russo-Elling who was stabbed yesterday in Astoria.
  • 🚌 New priority bus lanes opened yesterday in western Queens.
  • 🎓 A new school for accelerated learning will open in southeast Queens as part of the many policy changes announced by the DOE.

☁️🌥 Increasing cloudiness. High: 65 Low: 56.

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Here are the top stories in Queens today:

1. FDNY EMS Lieutenant Alison Russo-Elling was fatally stabbed in Astoria on Thursday afternoon in an attack New York City's fire commissioner described the attack as "barbaric and completely unprovoked." The 61-year-old medic, a 24-year veteran of the FDNY was a few steps away from Station 49 in Astoria, where she worked, when an emotionally disturbed man approached her and stabbed her multiple times in the neck. She was rushed to Mount Sinai Queens in critical condition where she died. Russo-Elling is the second EMS worker to die in the line of duty in the last five years. The suspect, Peter Zisopoulos, 34, was arrested.

ABC 7 News ; New York Daily News

Correction: The suspect was misidentified in an earlier version of this digest.

2. City officials along with elected and community leaders from western Queens cut the ribbon on Thursday on a new bus lanes along the corridor from Queens Plaza North to Hoyt Avenue North. The construction on the 1.7-mile stretch of roadway, known locally as "The Speedway" because motorists use it to avoid paying the toll on the Triborough Bridge, improves not only pedestrian safety, but also bus service that was slow and unreliable. The new priority lanes provide service to 29,000 riders along three different routes — the Q66, Q69, and Q100. "Finding ways to improve bus service is key to providing faster, more reliable transit options for all of our borough's residents, no matter what their ZIP Code or socioeconomic status may be," Queens Borough President Donovan Richards said. "The 21st Street Bus Priority Project will vastly improve bus service in western Queens, while also enhancing safety for all who use 21st Street."

Queens Courier ; New York Daily News

3. The Department of Education announced a policy change on Thursday that will greater emphasize top performing students within the lottery system admissions process. Schools Chancellor David Banks outlined the new system wherein eighth-graders in the top fifteen percent of their middle schools, or with a GPA of 90 or above, will be given first priority to access screened schools. Banks also said that by fall 2024 three new schools would be opened for accelerated learning, including one in southeast Queens. The new policy is a contentious one with some asserting that admissions screens are unjust, and limit students' access to quality schools, while others claim the new system makes it easier for families to find the right school for their child.

Queens Chronicle ; The New York Times

4. A Queens man will spend the next year in federal prison for stuffing over 600 protected turtles into socks and shipping them to China via Hong Kong in 2017 and 2018. Chu Sen Guan, 33, and his brother, Chu Wei Guan, 35, sent the turtles overseas by stuffing them into tight socks so their legs and head wouldn't move, and then wrapping the socks tightly with tape. According to the prosecutor, the packing process was a "two-person operation" because it's extremely difficult to bundle the turtles. Unsurprisingly, many turtles did not survive the abusive five-to six-day journey with no air, food, or water. While the turtles — including the Eastern box turtle and the Florida box turtle — sell for as little as $125 in the U.S., but go for up to $2,000 each in China.

New York Daily News

🗞 Hungry for more news? 🍴Snack on these headlines:

  • Office Of The Queens Borough President Richards On Status Of Innovation QNS (Press Release Desk)
  • Assailant punches man, attacks him with 'wet floor' sign at Queens subway station (1010 WINS)
  • Embattled Tree Bros Hang on to City Pruning Contract With DOI Monitorship (The City)
  • What's the Key to Understanding Donald J. Trump? Start with Queens. (The New York Times)
  • QNS Weekender: Five things to do in Queens (Queens Courier)

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🗓 To Do Today in Queens:

  • Open Adult Table Tennis (6 a.m.)
  • Kids in Motion: Juniper Valley Park (10 a.m.)
  • Queens Farm Farmstand (11 a.m.)
  • Woodhaven-Richmond Hill Older Adult Center Celebrates National Senior Center Month with Stories From Our Seniors (1 p.m.)
  • Free Painting + Artist Tech Gallery (5:30 p.m.)
  • Family Camping: Alley Pond Adventure Course (6 p.m.)
  • Caan Film Festival: Thief (7 p.m.)
  • Live at Culture Lab LIC: Free Outdoor Concerts! (7 p.m.)
  • Queensboro Dance Festival Season Finale (7:30 p.m.)
  • The Bazurto All Stars: La Banda de Cartagena (8 p.m.)
  • Comedy Night in Glendale (8 p.m.)

🗣 Queens Chatter:

  • 🦠 Free COVID tests at the Queens Botanical Garden: ""The local Flushing community and all of our visitors have been extremely grateful for the ability to pick up free COVID at-home tests at the Queens Botanical Garden," said Evie Hantzopoulos Executive Director, Queens Botanical Garden. "As a safe and healing space, the Garden, along with so many other cultural institutions, played a pivotal role in meeting the needs of our communities during the pandemic." Click to learn More on how to pick a free at home test up from the garden: https://queensbotanical.org/know-before-you-go/ Learn more about the distribution program and your nearest location: https://www.nychealthandhospitals.org/.../test-treat..." (Queens Botanical Garden via Facebook)
  • 💃 Amazing talents at the dance festival finale: "The 3-day season finale of the 2022 Queensboro Dance Festival is almost here! This weekend - Friday, September 30 to Sunday, October 2, audiences will experience the World's Borough through the amazing talents of 26(!) Queens-based professional dance companies. Genres include Colombian, tap, Hula, West African, contemporary, Afro Latin, Chutney, Turkish Gypsy, hip-hop, Kathak, ballroom, Greek, ballet, and Filipino. Get tickets at: https://bit.ly/QDFFinale" (Queens Theatre via Facebook)
  • 🏛 Charisse Pearlina Weston exhibition at the Queens Museum: " "of [a] tomorrow: lighter than air, stronger than whiskey, cheaper than dust" is Charisse Pearlina Weston's first solo museum presentation. Featuring a site-specific installation, as well as a series of new sculptures and works on canvas, the exhibition explores the radical possibilities encapsulated in the threat to stall, delay, and withhold passage through. Within these works Weston utilizes haptic materiality and abstraction in both language and form to continue her examination of the dynamic interplay of architecture, intimacy, and (spatial) violence. Deploying various modes of repetition and enfoldment intermingled with poetic, historical, and autobiographical interventions, Weston's work reimagines and posits Black interior life as a central site of Black resistance. Discover "of [a] tomorrow" during our Fall Opening on 10/2! : https://qnsmu.se/fallopening2022 *replace with IG feed images*" (Queens Museum via Facebook)

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You're officially in the loop for today! I'll catch up with you bright and early tomorrow morning with your next update.

— Emma Radu Fighera

Have a news tip or suggestion for an upcoming Queens Daily? Contact me at queens@patch.com

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