Queens Man Who Allegedly Filed $150K in Bogus Unemployment Claims Busted

City officials, elected leaders, developers and community members gathered at the location of a formerly vacant illegal dumping ground on Beach 44th Street Wednesday to cut the ribbon at the new 35-acre Arverne East Nature Preserve and Welcome Center along the Rockaway waterfront in Edgemere.

The preserve represents phase one of an ambitious Arverne East development project, which will transform more than 100 acres of underutilized space between Beach 32nd Street and Beach 56th Place into 1,650 units of housing — 80% of which will be affordable, serving low-income and middle-income individuals and families — in addition to retail and community space, a hotel and a tap room and brewery.

State Senator James Sanders Jr. hosted his annual Earth Day celebration in the Rockaways on Saturday, Apr. 20, highlighted by his “Tuvalu Challenge” address, delivered while standing in the surf off Beach 86th Street with like-minded community leaders.

For the third year in a row, Sanders delivered his speech in the Atlantic Ocean to commemorate a similar address by Foreign Minister Simon Kofe of the South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu on Nov. 5, 2021, to dramatize the plight of his endangered country from climate change by standing in the ocean.

Apr. 25, 2024 By Iryna Shkurhan

As Pro-Palestinian encampments emerged at over a dozen college campuses across the country following in the footsteps of Columbia University, local elected officials pushed out statements in response.

Apr. 24, 2024 By Ethan Marshall

New York City has launched a housing lottery for 134 units in the 17-story mixed-use building The Peninsula A1, also known as Edgemere Commons Apartments, at 51-23 Beach Channel Dr. in Far Rockaway.

Apr. 23, 2024 By QNS News Team

New York City Football Club (NYCFC) celebrated the recent approval of a new 25,000-seater stadium in Willets Point with a 2-0 victory over DC United at Citi Field on Saturday, Apr. 20. 

Apr. 22, 2024 By Ethan Marshall

The Summer 2024 Queensboro Dance Festival, slated to run from June 8 through Sept. 15, will include more than 30 scheduled performances at various venues throughout the borough.

Apr. 22, 2024 By Ethan Marshall

While New York City as a whole has experienced a decline in the number of housing units on the market over the past year, the borough of Queens has bucked the trend.

A Rockaway Park man was criminally charged with a slew of crimes after an arsenal of more than 30 firearms, including ghost guns and assault weapons, was uncovered along with thousands of rounds of ammunition and other weapons-related paraphernalia were seized during a raid at his home on Beach 117th Street on Wednesday.

Ryszard Materna, 51, was arraigned Thursday before Queens Criminal Court Judge Germaine Auguste on a 281-count complaint after a long-term investigation into his purchase of polymer-based firearm components that can easily be assembled into operable weapons, known as ghost guns.

Apr. 19, 2024 By Athena Dawson

Stacy Bliagos, executive director of HANAC, an Astoria-based Hellenic non-profit organization, spoke exclusively to QNS about the organization’s dedication to helping Queens’ most vulnerable residents. 

A Brooklyn man was indicted Monday by a Queens grand jury in connection to a fatal hit-and-run collision on the Rockaway Boardwalk near Beach 47th Street in Arverne in 2022.

Raytawon Wright, 26, of Rockaway Avenue in Ocean Hill, was arrested Monday morning and booked at the NYPD 105th Precinct in Queens Village and arraigned in Queens Supreme Court hours later on an indictment charging him with manslaughter, leaving the scene of an incident without reporting, reckless driving and other crimes. Wright, who was riding a dirt bike on the boardwalk, allegedly crashed the vehicle into a pedestrian, and his passenger, David Molina of Cedarhurst, Long Island, was killed when he was ejected from the bike during the Aug. 29, 2022 incident.