Saturday, February 24, 2007

Flushing Down the Tubes

A walk through Flushing, courtesy of Verdi.












39 comments:

georgetheatheist said...

Does anyone have a photo of the house in Flushing where Nancy Reagan was born/raised?...Does it still exist?

verdi said...

Correction for viewers:
My walking tour photos have the wrong time & date displayed (lower right corner).
I was in shock at all the ugliness, which accounted for the camera setting error. They were taken just last week.

Anonymous said...

The 9th building , as you scroll down, was built to fill in a courtyard of an existing 4 story (1930s) apartment complex. Trees, of course, were cut down and the lawn was removed to fit in this ugly box.

This site is located behind the historic Bowne House.

The new building has been vacant for years. It doesn't have a certificate of occupancy yet.

This is because (as was told to me by a FDNY firefighter) there's not enough room between the 2 buildings to accomodate fire apparatus!

I was also told (according to the records) that Councilman John Liu took campaign contribution money from the builder!

Anonymous said...

thats how the chinese like it..go to there countries and see how they live..same thing. all packed together in multi apt. dwellings. we have no one to blame but ourselves for allowing them to enter illegally and ruin our borough.

Anonymous said...

Of course, Undocumented aliens are the chief source of cheap labor for the constructions companies...hmmm.

Anonymous said...

Wow Im shocked how fast it changing, it looks like a city in China. They can shoot Bladerunner II there

verdi said...

George, the Nacy Reagan house still exists. It's located west of 150th Street on the south side of Roosevelt Ave. I'll try to shoot a photo of it and post it.

Anonymous said...

The last photo is what you see from the westbound platform of the LIRR station Main St. stop looking east toward (vacant for over 5 years) Caldor's. Dept. store on Main St.

What a crappy welcome view to greet visitors.....the back of retail/residential units.

Imagine living there!

Anonymous said...

Lot of nice crap there! Great photo montage!

Russ

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous said...
thats how the chinese like it..go to there countries and see how they live..same thing. all packed together in multi apt. dwellings. we have no one to blame but ourselves for allowing them to enter illegally and ruin our borough."

I surely hope you are kidding here. You live in one of the most diverse places in the world, and your worldview doesn't reflect it. You also cannot spell correctly.

Anonymous said...

To the last comment, I don't think anyone lives on the rooftops of those stores, or in the train platform where those photos were taken from.

Flushing is getting attention from prominent developers and will change in a big way, for the better (Willets Point, Shea Stadium, Flushing Commons, Flushing City Center, RKO Keiths)

Anonymous said...

The state of Flushing is national embarrassment.

As the nation that produced some of the world's most beautiful structures and the most innovative urban planning, how the hell could we allow this to happen in our greatest city?

Future generations will curse us for standing by and letting greed destroy our history and architecture and replacing it with ugliest garbage imagineable. Nowhere in the world - including army bases, prisons, and the former Soviet Union do you find shit this ugly and out of place.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
thats how the chinese like it..go to there countries and see how they live..same thing. all packed together in multi apt. dwellings. we have no one to blame but ourselves for allowing them to enter illegally and ruin our borough.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Please do a search on "The Chinese Exclusionary Act of 1882". Another proud moment of our nation's history.

Anonymous said...

Hey, dummy! They don't live on the rooftops or on the LIRR platform! They live in the residential units that face an equally ugly stinking street filled with vegatable garbage and an occasional smelly fish head! But I guess that's what passes for luxury here!

Welcome to F.......LIU.......SHING (as in John)......its equally "classy" City Council representative!

Anonymous said...

I love when morons come to this board and post. It says this is "a walk through Flushing," it doesn't say that all the photos are of living spaces. Some Queens Crap is just "crap," like what is seen from the Flushing Railroad platform. If Flushing is the next downtown, then they need to clean it up first!

Anonymous said...

It looks like the scatalogical "planners" of this pile of flushable Flushing are getting pissed off! They're trying so hard to defend these ugly architectural abortions with such vehement retorts!


Let me guess who they might be.....the Flushing Chamber Pot of Commerce, CB#7, C.M. Liu, Toby Stavisky....oh yes, the builders!

Well, these pictures speak a thousand words!

Anonymous said...

It's funny how quickly some critics always pull "the racist card" when any one dares criticize the situation!

I guess that they're too embarrased and too unskilled to come up with anything concrete to justify the stench, overcrowding and increase in the crime rate!

Anonymous said...

I guess that these disturbing photos are not what the NYC Vistor's Bureau had in mind to encourage "tourism"!

Anonymous said...

Would the poster who mentioned the RKO Keith's project as a shining example of progress like to see what was destroyed by Tommy Huang & his accomplices?

Go to the Queens Historical Society to see the "before" photos that are on file!

You can then make your own decision.

Anonymous said...

Don't blame the Asians for "ruining" Flushing. It was a (nameless) certain old real estate company who
(along with our local gov't board, development companies, Donald Manes etc.) who invited them here to ward off a ficticiously manufactured "blight" that was supposedly hitting Flushing!

The Asians were to be introduced, somewhat, as a "species" to prevent Flushing from becoming Black , like the South Bronx or South Jamaica. There was a great fear of dropping values of the vested realtors properties, I suppose.

We've actually heard a former State Assemblyman say this: "Thank God for the Asians. We didn't want Flushing to become a South Jamaica"!

Talk about anti African-American racism at its lowest! But, in truth, that was the initial plan in the early 1980s.

What then occured was an inflation in the value of real estate and the overbuilding that followed. A careful examination of who owns what real estate in the Main St. environs will reveal a lot of the "old real estate boys", who are not Asian but are nevertheless pleased to gouge their Asian renters.

Thus followed a long and ugly story of rapacious overdevelopment and the destruction of some beautiful architecture. That criminal "Taiwanese Tornado", Tommy Huang, then swept through Fushing like a plague of Locusts to be soon followed by others.

georgetheatheist said...

2 things:

1. Dear Anonymous:..Please stop demurely pussy-footing...Please NAME names..."(nameless) certain old real estate company"...W H O?..."a former State Assemblyman"...W H O?..."old real estate boys"...W H O?

2. There are to many "anonymouses" [Sp.?] here dear reader, don't you think?...I can't tell one from the other after a while and it seems to me that the content of messages sometimes gets lost in trying to figure out who's who...Suggestion:...would the posters who are signing on as "anonymous" please consider using a more recognizable name?

Anonymous said...

What happened to Elmhurst is a shame, what happened to Flushing is a crime.

Anonymous said...

George, I know you'd prefer to hear the "names" and see less "pussy-footing". So would I but that might be unwise for some of the posters to reveal them.

I guess we'll have to all be content with these anonymous messages.

There are some powerul people out there who would also like to know who's posting..

georgetheatheist said...

One does not have to give one's real name...How 'bout where it asks you on the "Leave your comment" section to "choose an identity" to select "Other" and then type in some nom de plume, some alias or fictitious "handle" and then sign in with that...No one would be the wiser...My eyes glaze over with this plethora of anonymousness.

Anonymous said...

I agree with George. Click onto the Collapse Comments at the top of this page and count the anonyms. Come on! This is America! Have the posters no balls?

Anonymous said...

George and Mr. Natural (etc.)........Those "names etc." that you're all so interested in, have already been given to various "authorities" and have already delivered some "fruitful" results! Sorry I can't elaborate.

What have any of you done except key stroke some pithy words? Have you put your person in physical danger ? (No exageration here)!

The security industry has taught me that "balls" are one thing and "stupidity" is another. I don't blow my cover! "Confusing the enemy"is what it's all about.

Just know that I'm doing my work as we speak. Now let me see you do yours!

10-4!
End of conversation on the subject.

verdi said...

The one before the last photo looks like a detention center. All it needs is cameras and razor wire around the perimeter!

Would you belive it's supposed to be a Korean church?

Anonymous said...

Yes, and so far DOB has waived the parking lot requirement for that Korean "church"! H-m-m-m!

Anonymous said...

The Pen is Mightier than the Sword.

Anonymous said...

Tha holds true only if the sword is dull and the words are sharp! On this blogsite we use words of mass destruction! Keep it up!

Anonymous said...

I agree with George. Enough with nameless posts. If you care enough to speak up, then give yourself a name. At the very least "Publicus".

Anonymous said...

Verdi, why are you focusing on only crap in Flushing? There are some very nice buildings that you could have photographed.

What's that? You want me to name a few?

Duhhhh... can't think of any now but I'll get back to you.

I'm trying to locate George the Atheist. He must be a live-for-today kind of guy. That's exactly what I'm looking for.

Anonymous said...

What’s has happened, not happening because it’s already too late, in Flushing is a crime.
There was potential to create a really exciting ‘downtown’ along Main Street but design is non-existent and the quality of construction looks shoddy.

And I’m sorry, it’s primarily Asian-American developers at work in Flushing. If they dare to build it let them take their lumps just like the Italian-Americans, Greek-Americans and every other ethnic group throughout the borough. Bad taste and greed knows no bounds.

Anonymous said...

It's the words and ideas expressed that are important, not the pen names of the posters! "Anonymous" is good enough for me!

Let's get past this please.

Anonymous said...

HERE ARE SOME NAMES FOR YOU!

Myra Baird Herce (the defunct Downtown Flushing Development Corp. & CB #7) ; Regina Colletta (district manager CB #7) ; Wellington Chen (CB #7 member....I believe "landmarks committee" ) ; Borough President Donald Manes ; Borough President Claire Shulman ; Franklin P. Reagan Jr. (attorney who represented Tommy Huang in the purchase of the RKO Keith's Theatre... also was on the board of trustees of the Bowne House) ; Kent Realty; Mehran (realty?) ; Schwartz (realty?) ; etc. did we leave anyone out?

Ask them (those who are still with us that is) what they did to ensure good planning (preserving the good old stuff and building some good new stuff) in Flushing over 27 years ago.

They were all around then and they were the key players!

Do some homework.....some of your own research and see what you can discover!

Are any of your ears (or eyes) burning out there?

Anonymous said...

Wasn't it Wellington Chen (Chinese himself....obviously) who publicly refered to ....." Flushing as a "....crappy...." (looking)....." Chinatown....." ????

verdi said...

The10th photo down, is a piece of pretentious crap that's being built directly opposite Kingsland House, the headquarters of the Queens Historical Society.

It happens to be an Asian project.

However, the rather severe building complex to the right of the Old Quaker Meeting House on Northern Blvd happens to be an Italian-American job..... Ciampa!

Just to show that there's no favoritism or discrimination intended here.

P.S.
The Quakers turned down a million dollars (that' s right!) for their air rights. Otherwise the Ciampa Org. could have built taller and larger.....to the max! (There would not have been the open courtyard that you see....but another building...perhaps).

They felt that stewardship of the meeting house and preserving open air space was more important than greed. God bless those Quakers!

Anonymous said...

Those Staviskys, Mc Laughlin etc. tried to burn Julia Harrison as a witch for pointing out some (now evident) truths about Flushing and the direction in which it was headed.

She was "set-up" by an Asian NY Times reporter who took some of her words completely out of context and put an "editorialized" spin on the subject instead of instead of doing her job as a reporter!

But that's nothing new for the NY Times. It's not the "newspaper of record" anymore....a few too many of their reporters have recently been connected to innacurate newsgathering scandals.

Anonymous said...

corrext me if i am, wrong
when john liu had his victorty party at flushing library; wasnt his farther a bank exec being convicted of fraud.
so what bank funded these projexts as well as the times sq like billboard on main street and the soon to be gone municipal parking lot