Community Service Reports

Drowning in Zika: The Puddle Problem in Elmhurst

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With all of the warnings about Zika virus, and helpful tips on how to prevent the spread of this virus, it is completely unacceptable to have the puddles of stagnant warm water (ample habitats for mosquito eggs to live and hatch) constantly around Elmhurst.

Community Service Reports

The Foul Smell of Contempt: Whitestone’s lack of Sanitation

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Picture your perfect, family-based neighborhood, filled with barbecues, children playing, and people jogging. Most people would first think of bright colors and clean, spotless streets, certainly not garbage-covered sidewalks with a side-order of doggy “presents” left behind by uncaring pet owners. Unfortunately this is what my childhood neighborhood has come to. The cause of this growing epidemic is mostly blamed on younger generations, including those who move in lacking a connection to a community's history. At one level, we see this with the controversial issue of "gentrification," where people "improve" neighborhoods to their liking without considering what came before. Over time generations get more and more careless, slowly losing respect for the environment and organisms living in it.

Community Service Reports

Gunshots or Fireworks?: Crime in Pomonok, Queens

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I live only blocks away from the Pomonok Houses, or the Pomonok "Projects," in Queens, in the more private, safe community known as Elechester, and the difference between the two neighborhoods, which are so close together in the larger neighborhood also known as Pomonok, is striking.

Environment

Chinatown Trash Wars: New York City’s Sanitation Epidemic

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If you’ve ever visited the Chinatown neighborhoods of New York, you would know that their streets are no joke. The questionable stains on the concrete as well as the pungent aroma of rotting fish are truly an unpleasant welcome upon entry. Last night’s trash occupies the edge of the sidewalk. An unknown liquid substance leaks (and reeks) from the garbage onto the city streets and has become a staple of New York’s Chinatowns. Something as simple as keeping the city clean should not be such a prevalent issue in our society.