Monday, October 29, 2007

AM-NY: PlanYC is "almost messianic"

PlaNYC 2030, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposal to radically reshape the city, is a far-reaching document that could alter the way people live. But it does even more. There is an almost messianic quality to the plan and in its contention that as goes the city, so goes the nation, if not the world.

PlanYC not what it seems

But lost in the talk of hybrid taxis, millions of trees, and yes, paying a fee to get into Manhattan, are the less headline-grabbing details that could still transform important aspects of city life.

One of wackier parts of the mayor's plan involves building a deck above the BQE where it dips down the middle of Hicks Street and building housing on top. Robert Moses built the highway in the 1950s, splitting Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill. There are major engineering, zoning, and transportation obstacles, not to the mention the difficulty of convincing people to live atop an expressway. A spokesman for the city's housing department said the plan was still conceptual, but the possibilities are intriguing.


Makes you wonder if Bloomie ever really gave up the pot smoking he said he enjoyed so much...

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm sure the people who live on top of the FDR Drive aren't complaining too much.....

verdi said...

According to Bloomberg's interpretation
of Jewish law.....the new Messiah has already arrived.

It is HE !!!

Anonymous said...

I think that we have to consider building
construction platforms.....high in the sky....
on top of, for example,
the Empire State building.
(Then we can build above it....
the begining of a new second level city).

We're running out of space to over develop in NYC.

We need a multi tiered approach to land use.

Hey.....why not
deck all our rivers.....they're "underutilized" ? !!!

Anonymous said...

The plan to build atop the BQE where 60 years ago Robert Moses cut a huge gash and destroyed an entire neighborhood should be looked at as some long overdue healing for that Brooklyn neighborhood.

Those who make fun of the plan don't understand how much the BQE has devestated entire neighborhoods, and how connecting streets that had been forceably estranged will help rebuild entire neighborhoods that now are on the "wrong side of the tracks".

Repairing that damage will be a huge Bloomberg legacy and I applaud his efforts.

Crapper: Your attempts to slam the Bloomberg administration every chance you get diminishes your overall credibility.

Queens Crapper said...

You thought this website had credibility in the first place? I think not.

Queens Crapper said...

P.S. I live in Maspeth and Moses did the same exact thing here. I would hate to see the LIE roofed and more housing plopped on top of it. Now a ribbon of parks I could go for.

Anonymous said...

Actually, it seems that AM-NY was the one who called the plan "messianic" not Crappy.

Anonymous said...

Yes, let's not forget that we need a million more people by 2030. Who is going to pay the billions it will cost to deck a highway just so some developer can make money by building houses on it?

Anonymous said...

"There are major engineering, zoning, and transportation obstacles, not to the mention the difficulty of convincing people to live atop an expressway." - AMNY

Joke about pot-smoking - Crappy

I don't understand why they get on Crappy's case so much. His humor certainly doesn't sink to the level of some of the radio personalities I've heard lately.

Anonymous said...

Yes, but Crappy is making fun of some very sensitive politicians and we all know how they react when they don't like what someone says about them.

Anonymous said...

No one is saying deck over rivers and parks or the empire state building, but to build a deck over a congested ugly highway... wouldn't be such a bad idea. Now, the fact that it will cost billions of dollars and add more people to an already congested area, is another story, but things will just get worse anyway...might as well do it over a highway. Parks would be nice, but billions just to put a park there....not likely.

Anonymous said...

Parks would be nice, but billions just to put a park there....not likely.
---

Not if we say so. Remember, the people are in charge.

As to decking over a highway, it was already tried in upper Manhattan where apartment buildings are over the roadway leading from the G W bridge.

Guess what? They found all sorts of ailments and medical problems from the people living directly above car fumes.

And, as in the fatal flaw of roofinig over the Sunnyside Yards, making more tunnels under buildings in the age of terror is just plain stupid.

Anonymous said...

Hey, why not build hotels and luxury condos above the highway? Hotels in the outer boroughs tend to be in the seediest locations anyway...

Anonymous said...

Bloomberg bashing????.....bah !

That "A-hole" bashes himself
through his idiotic persistence
in micro managing NYC
as if it were his own company
(i.e. "This is my candy store....my hobby") !

This egocentric billionaire
and his aloof eccentric management style
has become the laughing stock
of other world class cities.