|
|
| |
Creating A Bold Vision For Willets Point’s Future
|
| Claire Shulman
|
By CLAIRE SHULMAN
The vision of creating a vibrant, mixed use, urban area in the Flushing, Willets Point, Corona section of Queens is proceeding as scheduled. The groundwork for this project is well underway and concerned members of the community are excited about this tremendous opportunity to create what will become one of New York City’s most vibrant and sought after neighborhoods.
As it currently exists, Willets Pont is one of the most blighted areas in the City of New York. Its soil and earth are polluted and in desperate need of remediation. The vast majority of its structures are substandard and do not conform to the City’s building codes. Anyone who has ever ridden the number 7 line to Flushing, visited Shea Stadium or driven on the Van Wyck or Whitestone Expressways has seen the worst eyesore in Queens County; 60 festering acres sitting in the middle of some of the most exciting and hopeful land in the City of New York. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Willets Point is surrounded by thriving communities. To the immediate west of Willets Point, just a few dozen feet away, the new Citifield, future home of the New York Mets, is rising daily. Across Roosevelt Avenue to the south sits nearly two square miles of some of the finest parkland in New York City, including not only hundreds of acres of playgrounds and sports grounds, but a zoo, the Theatre in the Park, the Hall of Science, the Queens Museum of Art, and the nation’s home for tennis, the National Tennis Center. Soon to be added to these jewels is a state-of-the-art swimming and ice skating complex. To the north lies Flushing Bay with its long promenade along the water and just a bit further a field are the communities of Flushing and Corona, both bustling hubs of commerce and home to world renowned eateries.
The City is working to renew Willets Point, to clean it up, raise the level of the land to eliminate flooding, and build an entirely new community. In the process 20,000 construction and 6,100 permanent jobs will be created. But that is just the start. As the project unfolds, it will create thousands of dwelling units including desperately needed affordable housing. A new convention center, the first in the City to be built outside of Manhattan, will rise along with a new hotel, new parkland, open space and a new school. Add to this entertainment and shopping venues, and the appeal in undeniable. All this will be just a short walk away from transit and rail connections, next to three highways, and a mile from LaGuardia Airport.
For those whose businesses and jobs will have to be relocated the City is prepared and willing to work on an individual basis with each and every business owner and employee. For businesses, the City, through the Economic Development Corporation, will provide relocations, financial and technical assistance to ensure the shortest possible and least disruptive business relocations. For employees, the City stands ready to provide job training and placement, assistance with ESL and GED classes, and legal immigration, and other social services.
In the months ahead, the City will issue the ULURP, which will re-zone Willets Point, put forth a redevelopment plan, and de-map its existing streets to spur redevelopment. As the process unfolds, all interested parties will have ample opportunity to comment and make their voices heard on this matter.
Claire Shulman is the President of the Flushing Willets Point Corona Local Development Corporation and a former Borough President of Queens.
|
|
Serial Rapists Terrorize Southeast Queens
World’s Fair Book Finds Missing Pieces
Willets Point Seeks Recommendations
Supreme Court Muddles State Gun Law
Home Run For Queens Boys And Girls Club
Assemblywoman Hit By Car
Candidates Get Ready To Rumble
Domestic Violence Center Opens In Queens
Queens Family Mourns Loss Of Soldier
Cemetery Buried In Property Debate
Recent Hate Crimes Spur Local Reaction
Queens Reacts To Passing Of City Budget
Cut The Cost And Time Of Transportation
Kitten Looks For A Nice Home
More Than Two Ways to Begin Political Career
Suicide Jumper
Queens Parents Are Happy With Schools
Parking Loss Due To Bike Lane Debated
Teacher Accused Of Abusing Student
Cop Impersonator Accused of Rape
Queens Schools Fail Arts Requirements
Politico Served With Civil Suit
Future of Day Care Under The Scope
|
| |
Albany D.A. Sees No Evil By Spitzer or Anyone Else
By
HENRY STERN
Day 1 – Everything Changes
Day 276 – in unexpected way.
The melodramatic farce, Bruno v. Spitzer et al., continues its slow procession through the slime of Albany. People are losing interest in the semi-scandal, a situation which is usually better news for the accused than for the accuser.
“Troopergate”, as it has imaginatively been titled, is a textbook case of much ado about relatively little, but not nothing.
It is by now generally known that the governor’s men used state troopers to track the majority leader’s use of a state plane. Spitzer may have concocted the plan, consented to it, or been blindsided by overeager staff members. We ask what difference does it make? If Spitzer did not want Bruno to use the plane, he could have grounded him, just as Pataki did when the two men fell out in 2006 over horse racing issues. If Spitzer wanted to document Bruno’s primarily partisan purpose in flying from Albany to New York City to attend political meetings, while adding some public business as a figleaf, he had every right to do so.
Nonetheless, Spitzer booted Assistant Deputy Secretary for Homeland Security William F. Howard out of the executive chamber and suspended Communications Director Darren Dopp. Something must have been wrong for him to take his nearest and dearest press officer and throw him to the wolves, at least temporarily. The governor publicly apologized on for his failure to oversee what was going on in his office.
Yet now the Albany County District Attorney, David Soares, who in late December found Comptroller Alan Hevesi guilty of a felony for misusing a state car and driver, declares that there is absolutely nothing wrong with all the machinations and concealment about the scrutiny of the plane. He gave Spitzer and his staff a clean bill of health, while Spitzer himself had apologized for his oversight, which some felt was an understatement.
Soares received substantial campaign contributions from George Soros, the billionaire sponsor of moveon.com. He received the money on the basis of a commitment not to prosecute minor drug offenders, although sometimes state law required it. Soares has lost credibility because of the double standard he takes with different state-wide public officials. His conduct in these cases makes his political ambition another casualty of Troopergate, nee Choppergate.
We have consistently maintained that whatever the governor and his staff did or failed to do, their behavior did not amount to impeachable or criminal misconduct. The whole affair is a political sideshow, in which Bruno successfully transformed himself from crooked manipulator to a victimized senior citizen. People are not distressed when the crafty old guy trumps the arrogant young pup who appears not to respect anyone.
We predict that this affair will die down as more and more people become bored with it, unless new evidence is discovered. The principal effect of Troopergate so far has been to diminish the reputations of the combatants on both sides, and as an unintended consequence to give a small lift to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
The old State Ethics Commission went out of business Friday, and the new one, appointed by Gov. Spitzer, now has responsibility for investigating matters of this sort. The new ethics commissioners have impeccable resumes and pedigrees, but so do Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts. No injustices will be committed by fools or dunces in this administration, although learning and scholarship may take second place to loyalty and harmony when it comes to making sensitive ethical judgments involving someone who appointed you to the public office you now hold.
In any event, the flap has taken attention away from Senate Leader Bruno’s possible indictment for outrageous behavior, including receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars for personal consulting services (he had no office other than his home) for businessmen who received substantial pork from the State Senate. If the allegations that were leaked to the press, in violation of another set of ethical standards, are correct, and if they can be proven, we are talking real jail time, which is not a cheering prospect for a 78-year-old tribune of the people. The case is said to be under constriction at the U.S. Department of Justice.
We have urged the parties to start transacting state business, and relax their efforts to disgrace or imprison each other. The irony is this is that Spitzer, as State Attorney General, pioneered in criminalizing commercial behavior of which he disapproved, and securing enormous settlements from corporations who did not want to follow the path of Arthur Anderson and their managers who sought to avoid indictment and trial.
Meanwhile, the vast challenge of reforming state government has largely been ignored. The entire reform agenda has been pushed back a year and whatever momentum was brought to Albany in the Spitzer sweep of 2006 has been thoroughly dissipated. Advantage, lobbyists whose clients profit from the satus quo.
We again call for the combatants to return their attention to public business. The legislature had hoped to resume its work in September, but that month has fast passed into history. Now Oct. 22 is bruited about as the possible date for a return to Albany. Unless agreements are reached by the Three Men in a Room, there will be no point in paying the senators and assemblymembers their per diem to sit around Albany. Of course, they are interested in getting their pay raises adopted.
Under Pataki, the Three Men in a Room despised each other. Under Spitzer, they humiliate each other, and litigate in the hope of rendering their rival hors de combat. The only rationale for this behavior is that it sets the stage for Armageddon in 2008 over control of the Senate. We predict that, whoever wins the Senate, the squabbling will resume.
Shakespeare made the point four centuries ago. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” Cassius told his co-conspirator, Brutus. He was right.
Starquest@NYCivic.org |
|
|
Not4Publication.com by Dom Nunziato |
|
|
|
|
