By Aaron Rutkoff

Willets Point — few residents of Queens are likely to recognize the name. Fewer still will have spent much time in the area. 

But walk east out of Shea Stadium after a Mets game towards the Flushing River or stroll north from the green pastures of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, and soon you’ll find yourself in a heavily industrial environment where auto repair shops, junk yards and gritty commercial enterprises abound.  Locals call it the Iron Triangle.

It is not a walk anyone would want to take alone at night.  There is not a house in sight, and the only residents are scattered bands of the homeless.

Yet Willets Point is an important place.  More than a third of the borough’s garbage passes through the area on its way to out-of-state landfills, and if state permission is forthcoming, even more Queens waste will travel through Willets Point soon.

Meanwhile, local developers, business leaders and elected officials are daydreaming about what Willets Point could be. They look westward from the bustling, vital and overcrowded streets of downtown Flushing and see a Willets Point of the future — complete with luxury apartments, office towers and — who knows? — maybe an Olympic stadium.

The question that remains is whose vision will it be? And the answer is a source of economic debate, and the winner will steer the course of a prime piece of real estate in the middle of the borough’s bustle.

New York City devised an unusual Fourth of July observance for itself two years ago.  As the fireworks burst over the East River, the City declared the massive Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island officially off limits to all new garbage.

In the subsequent weeks the Department of Sanitation phased in a “temporary plan” to dispose of the thousands of tons of trash City residents pile curbside each day. The arrangement was simple and also daunting: each borough would now take out its own trash using private carters. 

For Queens, that meant over 3,500 tons of residential waste tossed out daily needed somewhere to go.

Most of the waste was diverted to two transfer sites within the borough — one in Long Island City and the other Flushing — where it would be repacked onto huge tractor-trailers before moving on to landfills in New Jersey.

Tully Environmental, a Flushing company owned by Tully Construction, won a minimum three-year contract to handle a portion of Queens trash at a waste transfer site it opened in March 2001.  The facility, located at 127-20 34th Ave. in Willets Point, sits just beneath the curved bowl of Shea Stadium.

Originally the State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) granted Tully permission to handle 500 tons of waste per day, despite the vocal protests of community members and politicians. 

Within a year that number would double after Tully gained a larger permit — and now Tully is seeking permission to increase capacity once again.

If approved by the DEC, Tully soon will be allowed to receive a total of 1,495 tons of garbage each day, nearly tripling its waste capacity since the facility opened two years ago.

This week — on Thursday, Sept. 4 at 7 p.m. in the Gallery Room of the Flushing Sheraton — Tully will stage the public hearing mandated by the DEC to investigate the environmental impact related to the proposed expansion.  Local elected officials and representatives from Community Board 7 are expected to testify against the move.

CB 7 District Manager Marilyn Bitterman illustrated the difficulty faced by opponents.  “It’s legal,” she admitted of the waste transfer station, “but we have to look beyond what’s legal and into the future.”

That Tully performs a necessary — and, for company owners, profitable — service is beyond dispute, and even the company’s opponents acknowledge that the location of the waste station — near the junction of the L.I.E. and the Van Wyck, far from residential areas — makes it reasonably easy for garbage trucks to come and go without rumbling through too many neighborhood streets and disturbing homeowners. 

But those with a dream of development in Willets Point ask about the hidden costs of allowing a garbage hub in their community.

The Developers’ Dream

A consortium of business associations, led by Myra Baird Hearce of the Flushing Chamber of Commerce, convened a luncheon in early August to celebrate the unprecedented cooperation between State and City elected officials from Flushing, business groups, community representatives and — most importantly — City agencies guided by the Bloomberg administration. 

Hearce set the tone early, and her remarks were echoed by nearly every figure that spoke.  “In essence, what we have now is a very unified community . . . we are unified in wanting quality development,” she said, and went on to point to Willets Point as “essential for our future growth.”

State Assemblyman Brain McLaughlin, reflecting the heady optimism of the event, said “We can create thousands of jobs, we can create an economy second to none. We have to have the courage to stand up and say no.”

The speakers mostly proposed saying “no” to piecemeal developers currently active in downtown Flushing, buying up small properties and erecting buildings haphazardly in the eyes of those with a big stake in the overall development picture.

But with Tully’s application winding slowly towards approval by the DEC, a more urgent need to oppose the workings of a state agency now looms over the Flushing development enterprise. 

Many of the people involved view the expansion of Tully Environmental as an obstacle that might delay — if not derail — the whole initiative.

For instance, the Muss Corporation owns a long unused 14-acre lot on the east bank of the Flushing River south of Roosevelt Avenue.  At the luncheon, a representative from the company spoke glowingly of mixed residential and retail use for the land.

But since no one will move into condos overlooking the largest waste transfer station in Queens, it can only be assumed that Muss won’t begin to build them until Tully Environmental finds a new home.

With the City now supporting development, it falls to State representatives to garner similar backing at their level.  Assemblyman Barry Grodenchik said rather vaguely at the luncheon, “We are going to need the governor’s help in Willets Point.”

In a later interview with the Tribune, Grodenchik indicated the nature of this assistance.  “What we really need in Willets Point is a regional authority that the state will have to create,” he explained. 

Regional authorities, which are commissioned by the governor, have the power to condemn property and exercise eminent domain — a move that could sweep away Tully Environmental and other problematic establishments in the Iron Triangle.

Tully’s On Board

The president of the company that owns Tully Environmental, Peter Tully, counts himself among the supporters of redevelopment in Willets Point — and he told the Tribune he has been for a long time. 

The factor keeping Willets Point from lurching forward into the future of a greater Flushing is not the waste transfer station, according to Tully.

“We have no sanitary sewers, and that is unheard of in northeast Queens,” he said. 

In fact, he said, infrastructure improvements would render a State authority unnecessary in Willets Point. 

“Let’s say we get our sewers and the roads are rebuilt.  I could probably relocate my transfer station and reuse the land for something else,” Tully explained.    “If they would just build the infrastructure, there wouldn’t be a need for an authority.  The development in Willets Point would just happen naturally.”

Inside Tully Environmental, which is just a few hundred feet behind Tully headquarters, it is hard to imagine an area better suited for a waste transfer station.  The facility is little more than a plaza with a hangar-like structure in which city garbage trucks unload their haul in large mounds.  Bulldozers, like worker bees, scoop the refuse into waiting big rigs.

The foul odor of fermenting household waste is strong, but only while standing near the hangar.  Outside, it is hard to see how Tully damages Willets Point any more than the endless rows of auto garages and the unattended piles of used tires.

With an array of gritty businesses beyond the waste station, the Iron Triangle simply repels investment, according to Flushing based developer Wellington Chen, and Tully only compounds the woe.  “Why would anyone want to invest in the area?”

Tully disagreed. 

“Nobody will ever invest unless the City invests in us first,” he said.   “This really has little to do with the transfer station, which operates as cleanly and efficiently as possible.”

Tully, whose grandfather started the family business in the Iron Triangle, tends towards the long view.  “It always seems like somebody’s coming.  For 50 years, that’s what we’ve been dealing with,” he said.  “We’re almost destined to be a junk yard.”

Willets Point, just west of the Flushing River, has been targeted by business and political leaders for aggressive redevelopment. Today, however, a high-volume waste transfer station (left) and an array of auto shops (right) occupy the area.
Tribune Photos by Aaron Rutkoff

In just two years, Tully Environmental has doubled the daily capacity at its waste transfer station - and has applied for State permission to expand yet again.
Tribune Photo by Aaron Rutkoff

Sandwiched between Shea Stadium, the U.S.T.A. tennis complex and downtown Flushing is the “Iron Triangle.”
Tribune Photo by Aaron Rutkoff 

The Steinway Story:
One Family, Two Claims Of Being The Best

By Azi Paybarah 

The only people who dispute the fact that the greatest pianos in the world are the ones made by hand in the Steinway & Sons factory in Astoria are the people in Hamburg, Germany, who also make pianos by hand, under the Steinway & Sons name.

Like Venus and Serena Williams in tennis, the claim of world’s greatest is being fought within a single family.

Steinways have reigned as virtually the only name in the piano world for 150 years.  For most of those years, the pianos have been built in Astoria, just one block off the street bearing the family’s name. 

But 24 years after the first American Steinway & Sons office opened, a second plant in Hamburg was opened in 1880 by one of the founder’s sons. 

The Astoria/Hamburg debate has been raging ever since. 

Company officials diffuse the debate by admitting acoustic differences exist not just between Astoria and Hamburg pianos, but also between every single piano that bears the Steinway name.

“The sound is very subjective,” a statement issued by the company declared.  “Some Steinway artists feel that a Hamburg Steinway produces a bright sound, and the New York Steinway is more rich and dimensional.”  Skirting the categorization of “better than” or “best”, the company says, “each artist and individual player has his or her own preference.”

Queens At The Heart

Behind the Astoria factory, woods that originated from New York to Africa are “seasoned” for up to a year in what Steinway’s director of advertising and public relations Leo Spellman called “the rich climate of Queens.  You can’t get that in other places.” 

Explaining why New York’s largest factory, that produces instruments so sensitive to weather, remains in a service-industry city is similar to explaining how a piano player selects his Steinway. 

Spellman said, “It’s not something that’s easily definable. . . .Cabinetmakers tuning pianos, New York City and hand craftsmanship . . . contradictions that most people would shy away from are the heart of the Steinway secret.”

Piano Players Vs. Piano Makers

It’s not the musical talent pool of the borough that can explain Steinway’s ongoing success in Queens.

“Good piano players don’t necessarily make good piano makers,” said Director of Personnel Michael A. Anesta.  He quipped about the success rate of other piano company’s who gave up their locations in the City for digs elsewhere. 

“At the turn of the century there were 100 piano makers.  One hundred years later, there’s only one . . . . Companies that moved to lower cost of living areas have encountered the difficulty of uprooting their labor force and tried to recreate that somewhere else.  Most have failed or gone out of business,” Anesta said.

“The process itself makes the sound.  The key is the craftsman on the floor,” he added. “That labor force is the difference.”  The man in charge of replenishing that labor pool admits that the Big Apple isn’t where a company like his would normally be found. 

“It’s a very labor intensive, old style of production.  The way we build [pianos], the nature of the process, hand assembly, isn’t what people expect to find in New York in the modern era,” Anesta said.  “It takes nine months for each piano,” Anesta added, “not unlike birthing a child; probably just as painful.”

The Science And The Art

Pianos are the sensitive, finicky, temperamental divas of the music world.  The slightest change in temperature, humidity, even sun light could require a complete tuning session, which can take a professional hours.  “Pianos go out of tune in New York four times a year,” two Steinway employees joked.

The foreman of Steinway’s tone regulating department Mark Dillon – a motorcycle riding guitar player – said he doesn’t play the piano and he insists all visitors to the factory wear safety goggles. 

But he does watch piano concerts. 

He compares the reason why he watches Steinway pianos in action to why a mechanic watches NASCAR races: not to see the big crash, but rather to find and diagnose the slightest imperfection.

In the tuning and regulating section of the factory, Dillon said, is where “the large esoteric piece of cabinetry becomes an instrument.” 

It’s the science and the art of the piano that captivates him, Dillon said . . . how all the hammers rise above the chords in unison, like pistons firing perfectly. 

As for the sound, Dillon waxes on about what the perfectly tuned piano can do.  “The bass is far off thunder, but when you get to the treble [on the opposite end of the piano], you can hear the individual raindrops,” he said.

Patents and Sounds

The first Steinway & Sons factory opened in 1854 on Varrick Street, under the eye of the family patriarch Henry Englehard Steinweg, who had already tuned his own name.  When the Steinway factory opened in Astoria in 1872, Henry passed on, leaving his sons, C.F. Theodore and William to run the family business. 

The family business already patented an invention that earned them the Gold Medal Award from the Paris Exposition, the first American company to be so honored. 

The patent was for a revolutionary device in piano making:  the one-piece cast-iron plate.  Piano chords were strung along the cast-iron plate with industrial-like tension, giving each chord a greater, richer sound.  Also, the bass chords were run across the body of the piano, allowing for never-before-seen chord lengths, and unrivaled bass sounds. 

Six years after the Astoria plant opened, C. F. Theodore developed a way to use a single 22-foot piece of wood for the grand piano’s curvaceous rim.  Before that, several joints held the numerous pieces together, losing the richness of sound Theodore’s patent method offered.

Self-Taught Piano Tuner

Referring to the hand-shaped hammers that strike the chords, piano regulator Bruce Campbell said, “It makes a nasty noise on the attack when they’re not fitted properly. That’s why it’s important to get it perfect.” 

Wearing a tank top and Oakley-shaped safety glasses, Campbell said despite producing less than five thousand pianos a year, “we hold 90 to 95 percent of the market.”

Campbell tickles the ivory in a soundproof room, stopping to mark which keys need tightening, which hammers need shaving, and which, for now, are fine.  The man whose ear distinguishes the showroom-ready pianos from those that need more attention said he has little musical training. 

“I taught myself to play,” Campbell said, whose first job was shaping the hammers.  “It took me years to learn what I wanted the piano to sound like.”

The science of tuning the 88 keys, and adjusting the 1,200 individual pieces of the piano, is never finished. 

Three chords must be hit simultaneously, with surgical precision, to produce a single note.  A hand-shaved hammer strikes down on the chords, rotating around a wire-thin hinge coated in Teflon.

“The material is very much alive…from when it leaves [the factory or showroom] and settles into the home,” Dillon said.  “You ever see that image of a piano by the window, bathed in sunlight?” he asked, and then warned, don’t do it!

“That’s the worst possible thing you could do,” he said, to the wood finish and finely-tuned chords of a true, Queens-bred Steinway.

Steinway’s Mark Dillon - a motorcycle riding guitar player - inspects the 1,200 pieces inside a concert piano.
Tribune Photos by Azi Paybarah 

Adjusting the 88 key by hand in a sound proof room is Bruce Campbell, who taught himself to play piano. 

Wood from New York to Africa is seasoned behind the Astoria Factory for up to a year.

The hammer shank is one of the mechanisms connecting the keys to the chord.