Bay’s not scary enough for you? Try lower Manhattan...

Written by Eric Lima

If you happen to be in lower Manhattan – say, around Varick Street – any evening until the end of October, don’t be surprised if you see a screaming crowd running toward you chased by a werewolf or Freddy Krueger and his razor sharp nails.

The monsters from “Blood Manor” are known to occasionally escape and wander the streets at night in search of prey.

After six frighteningly successful seasons, the manor returns for the Halloween season of 2011.

Besides moving to a new location at 163 Varick Street in the Hudson Square district, the this-is-not-your-father’s-haunted-house attraction brings animatronics – robotic creatures that seem eerily real – and a 3D room where you will be convinced that the monsters are on top of you.

Think of your favorite horror film, and then imagine stepping inside of the scariest scene, like maybe the bloodthirsty demons from “Insidious” wandering through the misty bowels of hell.

Or you might enter the Zombie Apocalypse!, the Graveyard of the Doomed, the Killer Klowns, the Wall Crawler in Death Row, and the Cabaret of Death. But before entering the House, visitors first must survive a gauntlet through a graveyard.

“We have 19 different rooms, and every room has a different theme,” says Guy DeMatties, manager and cast director. “It’s like IKEA – one way in and one way out, you walk in from beginning to end. You get to experience the theme of every room. We’ve got a vampire parlor, a couple of mazes, one maze that’s pitch black you won’t even be able to see your hand in front of you, an amazing 3D room, and a few other surprises,”

And he’s assembled the grisliest cast in the history of haunted houses sparing no expense on the strawberry syrup. The creatures range from the bloody grotesque to the most voluptuous and seductive vampires and monsters ever assembled outside of a Hollywood horror flick.

“We even have a couple of nice looking guys for the women,” Dematties said. “We’re open to everybody. We’ve had the elderly come in and we’ve had families come in, but it’s pretty much an adult attraction. We recommend it for children from 14 and up, although we’ve had families that have come in with their six year olds who’ve had a blast.”

There are, though, some rules you should know before entering the Manor. First try to arrive early. Second, when you enter you cannot touch the actors or the props, and no photos are allowed – it’s necessary for everyone’s safety.

“Don’t touch the actors and they won’t touch you,” DeMatties says.

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When it’s open:

Thursdays 7:30p.m. to midnight

Fridays & Saturdays 7:30 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Sundays 6 p.m. to 11 p.m.

General admission at the door is $35. Call 212-290-2825 or visit www.bloodmanor.com for information on advance tickets and discounts (including free admission if it’s your birthday!) and about extended hours closer to Halloween.

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Bay factoid

Contrary to what many may think, Floyd Bennett Field was not always a military facility. It was opened in 1931 as New York City’s first municipal air field. During the ‘30s, Amelia Earhart, Howard Hughes, and Wiley Post used the field in their record-breaking flights. It wasn’t until 1941 that the field became a Navy air station. Today the field -- named in honor of the aviator who flew with Richard Byrd on 1926 over the North Pole for the first time – is part of the National Park Service.

City airs special programs for niños

The city has launched a new series of Spanish-language educational TV for children.
Mayor Bloomberg, Katherine Oliver, acting president of the NYC Media Group, and “V-me” CEO and President Carmen DiRienzo announced the launching of NYC TV Kids Presents V-me Niños, to be seen from 7:30 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday on NYC Channel 25.
The content is provided through the city’s partnership with V-me, a national Spanish-language network developed with WNET.ORG, parent of public television stations THIRTEEN and WLIW21
“NYC TV’s airing of this new content brings into focus our continuing efforts to deliver educational and entertaining programming that everyone can enjoy,” said Oliver.
V-me Niños is part of the new NYC TV kids block that includes both animated and live action programming for children 2 to 7 years old.
The V-me Niños schedule includes:
• “Plaza Sésamo” – The Latin American version of “Sesame Street” teaches pre-schoolers, with animation, music and more.
• “LazyTown” – The award-wining international program devoted to kids’ health inspires young viewers to move, play and eat healthy though movement, music, comedy and storytelling in a colorful, high-energy world.        
• “ Five Minutes More”/”Cinco Minutos Más” – Innovative shorts promote literacy, story-telling and reading aloud to children, featuring characters from Jim Henson.
• “Pororo” – A curious penguin and his adorable animal friends don’t always agree, but they learn to solve problems, make choices, and help each other when it matters.
• “The Baby Triplets”/ “Las Tres Mellizas Bebés” – Spain’s famous mischievous Baby Triplets combine play with language skills and social development.
• “Bruno & the Banana Bunch”/”Bruno y los Banana Amigos” – A fun-loving monkey’s games and stories teach numbers, colors, shapes, and life lessons.
• “Boowa & Kwala” – A lively dog and a feisty koala bear mix musical antics with gentle humor and a fondness for learning.
4 nabbed in ‘tremendous’ bank fraud
Four Brooklyn men, including a lawyer and a financial advisor, have been arrested on bank-fraud charges for allegedly claiming falsely that their ATM cards were used without their permission and then getting reimbursed by the bank.
The four were charged with stealing $422,000 over five years, by telling various banks that their ATM cards had been lost or stolen, after they emptied their accounts with the same ATM cards, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes announced.
“These defendants corrupted a law created to help fraud victims and used it to facilitate a tremendous fraud,” said Hynes. 
The indictment charges that the Eric Manganelli, 36; Lam Dang, 37; John Tluczek, 37; and Marzena Tluczek, 35; made false claims to more than 20 banks that unauthorized transactions were made on their accounts, totaling more than $700,000. The defendants then demanded reimbursement from the banks, which paid them more than $422,000, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors say the men opened accounts and padded them with large deposits, over the course of several months. Later, the indictment charges, they drained the accounts, with withdrawals of $500 to $1,000 per day. Once the accounts were empty, the defendants would contact the bank and say their ATM cards had been stolen or lost and that the withdrawals were unauthorized, the DA said. After the banks reimbursed the “stolen” money, the defendants would close the accounts, according to the indictment.
Occasionally, large purchases were made, instead of withdrawals, but in those cases too, the cards were later reported stolen, Hynes said.
In most cases, surveillance photos show the withdrawals made by people dressed in pants, jackets, and motorcycle helmets – even in the middle of the day in July – but in other cases the faces of the people taking out the cash were obscured in other ways, such as in hoods or covered by masks.
The banking law the defendants are charged with exploiting, known as Regulation E of the Federal Electronic Funds Transfer Act, requires banks to reimburse fraud victims within 10 days of their reporting the fraud. After the stolen money has been reimbursed, the banks investigate the validity of the claim, but in this case, the defendants withdrew the reimbursed funds before the banks could finish their investigations, prosecutors said.
Manganelli is a lawyer, Marzena and John Tluczek have both worked at various banks, and Dang is currently employed as a financial advisor. All four are charged with using their knowledge of the law and the financial industry to further the fraud.
The investigation is continuing and more arrests are possible, Hynes said.

Clean-up at Coney nets dozens of bottles

To celebrate the signing of the “Bigger Better Bottle Law,” the New York Public Interest Research Group organized a beach clean-up in Coney Island on Friday, July 24, retrieving dozens of discarded bottles from the sand. .
About 40 college students and NYPIRG staffers wore green shirts —“going green”— and picked up soda and water bottles along the boardwalk and on the beach. 
Bending and picking up the bottles with his hands, Chris McCall, a second-year student at the Borough of Manhattan Community College said he had been looking forward to this beach clean-up since he first learned about the event in June.
“Not only is this a community service event, we are also raising awareness of the Bigger Better Bottle Law. Very often we think of civic engagement as a very alien concept, removed far from our everyday lives. We don’t realize how easy it is that events like the beach clean-up matters. A few people have asked me since I got here why we are picking up the bottles. I then have the chance to tell them about the new legislation,” McCall said. 
The Bigger Better Bottle Law, signed by Gov. David Paterson on April 7, is to add a 5-cent deposit on water bottles, increase the handling fees to 3.5 cents, and return 80 percent of unclaimed deposits to the state’s General Fund. The BBBL is designed to reduce litter by providing financial incentives for recycling, at the same time generating some $115 million for the state.
However, a recent lawsuit filed by Nestle and the International Bottled Water Association has placed the law on hold. The plaintiffs contend that the New York State-specific label requirement is unconstitutional. It is now up to the state legislature and the plaintiffs to come to a compromise in their negotiation.
McCall savors the victory, despite the lawsuit. “This was a seven-year campaign, and we finally won. I know our phone calls and letters made a difference, and I’m just happy that the bill was passed. We all worked really hard on it, and it’s time to celebrate,” McCall said.
The bags of bottles that students and NYPIRG staff picked up showed that the improved recycling law is truly necessary, NYPIRG says. Within five hours, the young people collected some 60 bottles, about half of them water bottles. “The new law will really matter. If it’s true that only a quarter of the bottling market is made up by water bottles, how come we are picking up so many more water bottles than soda bottles?” said Josie Zolkind, the NYPIRG summer project coordinator at the College of Staten Island.
The bottles collected were taken to a redemption center, and the nickels obtained from the soda bottle exchange will be donated to a local homeless shelter, said Jerome Furman, NYPIRG’s project coordinator at Brooklyn College. 

Bay factoid

Do you know where Dead Horse Bay is? 
Did you even know we had such a place?
We do. It’s an inlet just southwest of Floyd Bennett Field, named for its use in the 1850s as a site for making glue and other products from dead horses. 
Fittingly, the site has been reclaimed by the natural environment.

Bay factoid

Do you know where Dead Horse Bay is? 
Did you even know we had such a place?
We do. It’s an inlet just southwest of Floyd Bennett Field, named for its use in the 1850s as a site for making glue and other products from dead horses. 
Fittingly, the site has been reclaimed by the natural environment.

Financial Currents

Daily Money Managers help seniors handle their finances
By Joseph S Reisman
JSReisman@TaxHelp1040.com.
Daily money managers – part of an emerging profession in financial management -- 
Are available to help the elderly with day-to-day financial tasks. These include ensuring that Social Security benefits are received, that there is enough money to buy groceries, pay bills, balance the checkbook, ensure that their money is deposited in their bank accounts, fill out insurance claims and ensure that the claims are paid, organize tax records and other financial paperwork, and even negotiate with creditors on their clients’ behalf. Many spend a lot of time organizing medical records for bills and for insurance. 
Of course, this help isn’t limited to the elderly. People of all ages don’t have the time, or the confidence, to handle their money well.
But the service is particularly valuable for seniors, especially if their sons or daughters no longer live near them. Even if they’re in the same community, they are busy with their own lives and finances. There’s an added dimension – if parents start failing in their everyday activities, there’s a lot of emotion. A professional helps both the parents and the children by taking away a lot of the stress.
Some seniors may feel it difficult to acknowledge that they need help in handling their basic financial tasks. They feel that it is the beginning of their loss of independence, just as if they would by giving up driving. Actually, it may be the best way to allow seniors to retain their independence.  
For some, this is a much less restrictive alternative to guardianship. If, for example, someone suffered a stroke, and they can’t handle numbers as well as before, the money manager might be ideal. When the person recovers, the money manager is no longer needed. 
Most daily money managers charge for their services on an hourly basis, with rates ranging from $25 an hour to as much as $65 an hour. 
Many of these professionals also help to make sure their clients get to the doctor when they’re supposed to, and in many cases, they accompany them to the doctor. They arrange for transportation for them, and will even pick them up and take them. 
However, a money manager isn’t meant to take the place of an accountant or lawyer. Most daily money managers don’t have power of attorney over their clients, and therefore cannot sign checks. 
There is no formal training program, but many are members of the American Association of Daily Money Managers (AADMM). This organization helps its members to improve their professionalism through various educational programs. In addition, all members must abide by a code of ethics. 
The whole idea is to help people stay independent longer, not to take away their independence. 
If you feel you may need these services, thoroughly check out the daily money manager you’re considering hiring. There is a list of questions on the AADMM website, www.aadmm.com, to assist you in your choice. You can never certify anybody’s honesty, only their competence. So check references.
 Questions? Contact 
Joseph Reisman 
at 2751 Coney Island Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11235-5004
Tel: 718.332.1040, 
Fax: 718.743.2721 
JSReisman@TaxHelp1040.com.