You are reading

Illegal Fireworks Plaguing Queens Neighborhoods, Going Off at All Hours of the Night

Fireworks packaging left over from Monday night at Hunters Point (Photo provided by Mark Christie)

June 23, 2020, By Michael Dorgan 

Western Queens residents have been subject to a barrage of illegal fireworks in recent weeks that are being set off at all hours of the day and night.

Residents who live near the Long Island City waterfront or by Astoria Park say they are being kept awake by the noise and that it is affecting their quality of life. Residents in other parts of Queens are also grumbling about it.

Complaints about the illegal fireworks are coming into the 311 system at a rapid rate.

There have been 1,368 complaints filed with 311 by residents throughout Queens from June 1 to June 21, according to official 311 data. There were just 27 fireworks complaints in the borough for the same period last year.

There have been 136 complaints from the combined Astoria zip codes of 11102, 11106 and 11105 for the period.

Other zip codes where the number of complaints have spiked are in Far Rockaway, where the 11691 zip code clocked 100 complaints, followed by the greater Ridgewood and Glendale areas where 99 complaints were lodged for the 11385 zip code during the period.

Residents in Long Island City have also made plenty of complaints.

There were 49 complaints lodged by residents of the Long Island City zip code of 11101 over the three week period, while residents in the tiny strip that makes up the 11109 zip code accounted for a whopping 42 complaints over that same time frame.

The 11109 area covers about a quarter of a mile along Center Boulevard by Gantry Plaza State Park.

Zip Code 11101 is bound by the red line, excluding tiny area bound by gray on the Hunters Point waterfront that is Zip Code 11109 (Google)

Both the 11101 and 11109 zip codes cover Long Island City’s waterfront parks, which have become a hotspot for anti-social behavior this summer. There have been several reports of drag racing, excess litter, and other noisy activities taking place.

The fireworks disturbances in the area have been relentless over the last few weeks, according to Mark Christie, a local resident and the vice president of Hunters Point Parks Conservancy.

Christie said he is finding it difficult to sleep due to the crackling sounds made by the fireworks. He said his lack of sleep in recent days is starting to affect his ability to do his job.

“I can’t sleep because I am getting headaches from the noise and I feel drowsy during work,” he said.

For instance, on Sunday and Monday night, the fireworks started just before 10 p.m. and lasted until about 4 a.m., he said.

Christie said the situation has become so dire that families are talking about moving away from the area.

“There are lots of children in these buildings and families can’t do this anymore,” he said.

Christie, a founding member of HPPC, said that the parks are being destroyed by the damage caused by fireworks being set off.

“Around $200 million was spent on the parks and it’s going down the drain,” Christie said.

The fireworks are burning the grass and damaging the wood on the boardwalk, he said.

Burned grass at Hunters Point (Photo provided by Mark Christie)

“What they are doing is highly dangerous because the wood could easily go on fire and spread,” he said.

Christie said he went down to the waterfront Monday and found four separate sites where the fireworks were set off.

Later in the evening, he witnessed individuals taking fireworks out of a car. He decided to call the police.

“They were not interested, they wouldn’t even take the car’s registration plate off me,” he said.

“The park is being destroyed and it is being ignored by the authorities, we feel totally abandoned,” he said.

Sunnyside residents have suffered weeks of similar disturbances from illegal fireworks going off in their neighborhood. The 11104 zip code has recorded 28 complaints from June 1 to June 21, according to the 311 data.

Some residents said they are fed up and have taken to social media to voice their concerns about the uptick in fireworks usage.

“Enough of these fireworks already, it is almost 2 a.m. for God’s sake!” one poster on the Sunnyside Together Facebook group page wrote Sunday morning following a heavy night of firework activity.

Sets of 10 to 15 fireworks were going off at a time and could be heard from the intersection of 48th Street and 43rd Avenue, she claimed.

A fellow group member, who lives on 42nd Street, between 43rd and Skillman Avenues, said she was woken from her sleep by fireworks on the same night.

“It made me jump off my bed. It was bad,” she said. “It was loud and lasted at least for a long minute.”

One poster likened the scenes of fireworks exploding on Saturday night to a war zone.

“I couldn’t tell if they were coming from the street or a rooftop because I could only see white explosions like a war zone,” he said.

“The ash from the fireworks also damaged some of my outdoor furniture,” he added.

Another poster in the group said the illegal activity could cause a serious incident in the neighborhood.

“It’s just a matter of time someone burns down a building, blows up a car, or torches their entire body,” she said.

On Tuesday the mayor announced the establishment of a multi-agency task force to crack down on illegal fireworks sales following the high levels of 311 complaints.

The task force will target the sale and distribution of large quantities of illegal fireworks, the mayor said.

The unit will consist of NYPD Intelligence Bureau officers, FDNY Fire Marshals and members of the Sheriff’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

email the author: [email protected]

One Comment

Click for Comments 
Sara Ross

I’m in Forest Hills and we hear them all hours of the night too. I saw on the news that they’re mostly coming from Pennsylvania. I see so many PA license plates all around Queens and I think the drivers should be ticketed, along with those drivers with NJ and Florida plates, until they can prove they actually live there and aren’t using somebody else’s address. Florida residents have to live there at least 6 months of the year and I have seen cars in my area from Florida even during the winters for years! I’m also seeing a lot of temporary NJ plates.

Reply

Leave a Comment
Reply to this Comment

All comments are subject to moderation before being posted.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Recent News

Queens Public Library hosts conversation with Astoria author on borough history

Borough history geeks will want to mark Tuesday, April 4, on their calendars for the Queens Public Library’s Queens Memory Project online talk with Astoria author Rebecca Bratspies. The processor at CUNY Law in Long Island City will discuss her new book, “Naming Gotham: The Villains, Rogues and Heroes Behind New York’s Place Names,” and take a deep dive into the lives of the people for whom many Queens places are named, some of which have become synonymous with congestion, recreation or culture.

“Queens is the most diverse place on the planet. That diversity is our greatest strength. Our patchwork of unique neighborhoods has welcomed successive waves of immigrants, each adding incredible foods and traditions to our vibrant civic life,” Bratspies said. “Yet it is striking how few of the names that grace Queens’ major infrastructure actually reflect that diversity. By tracing the lives of the people whose names have become New York’s urban shorthand for congestion, recreation, and infrastructure, Naming Gotham offers readers an accessible way to understand the complexity of multiracial, multicultural New York City.”

Mayor aims to streamline leadup to city’s public review process to better attack affordable housing crisis

Long before the cement trucks begin lining up on Tom Seaver Way and shovels hit the ground on the ambitious Willets Point project across from Citi Field, touted as a transformational endeavor that will bring a 25,000-seat soccer stadium and 2,500 affordable homes to the Iron Triangle, it must first go through the city’s arduous public review process known as Uniformed Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP).

The largest 100% affordable, new construction housing project in four decades will be scrutinized by the Department of City Planning, local community boards, the borough president and Borough Board and the City Council before it ever lands on the desk of Mayor Eric Adams.

Parks Department launches new maintenance initiative to address cleanliness in public greenspaces in Queens and throughout NYC

With temperatures rising and days growing longer, the NYC Parks Department has launched a new maintenance initiative that will deploy 240 newly hired full-time staff to address cleanliness in city parks during peak days and hours.

The so-called “Second Shift” will collect trash and litter and mitigate graffiti at 100 hot spots in 62 parks across the five boroughs. The additional shift will operate from Thursday to Sunday in the evening hours to create cleaner parks while also fighting the scourge of rats — a frequent target of Mayor Eric Adams, who announced the new program in November as part of his “Get Stuff Done” initiative.

Middle Village school encouraging students to walk to school on National Walking Day

P.S./I.S. 49 in Middle Village school is encouraging its students to walk to school on April 5 in celebration of National Walking Day.

According to the school’s Parent/Teacher Coordinator Christina Chiaramonte, the initiative started when she learned about National Walking Day from a local parent and thought it would be a fun idea for students. Additionally, she said the effort could potentially help to alleviate vehicular traffic around the perimeter of the school, creating a safer environment for students.

Hero cops from Queens’ 105th Precinct perform life-saving CPR on 15-month-old baby

A pair of police officers from the 105th Precinct in Queens Village performed life-saving CPR on a 15-month-old baby in Brookville earlier this month, according to the NYPD.

Police responded to a 911 call regarding an unconscious baby at a residence near 226th Street and 146th Avenue in Brookville just after 2 a.m. on March 8. The baby’s family was present at the time of the incident and made the 911 call, according to a police spokesperson.