This fading industrial sector may be exper- iencing a renewed vitality because of its perch across the East River from Midtown, but its renaissance is at a quirky phase: The influx of residents is outpacing the goods and services that make a neighborhood. It is a car without an engine, a cup of ramen noodles awaiting a splash of hot water.Life’s Necessities Play Catch-Up With Development on the Queens Waterfront
Joseph Conley, the chairman of Community Board 2, whose district includes Queens West, said he was concerned what the burgeoning neighborhood might do to the true pioneers of the area — the third-generation residents who grew up in a neighborhood of single-family homes that stood alongside factories. Many of those people are not in the same economic bracket as the transplants settling in the luxury residences along the river.
“We don’t want it to be a playground for the rich.”
Meanwhile, my pals at Curbed are having a good chuckle at QW's expense:
QueensWest Stumbles Into Becoming Real Neighborhood
30 comments:
no supermarkets? Hmmm, maybe they'll all starve to death and die. :)
Joseph Conley, the chairman of Community Board 2, whose district includes Queens West, said he was concerned what the burgeoning neighborhood might do to the true pioneers of the area — the third-generation residents who grew up in a neighborhood of single-family homes that stood alongside factories. Many of those people are not in the same economic bracket as the transplants settling in the luxury residences along the river.
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Don't you love these politicians? They are in favor of developers, even if it means the people that pay the taxes and support the community is displaced.
Then when there is a problem, to nip it in the bud, they express 'concern'.
Mister, you are one of those in favor of this mess - don't bullshit us.
Lets see what he does when they try to roof over the yards.
Lets remember this and throw it in his face.
Nobody in the community is happy with this development except those that own property and those that await cutting a deal.
That is the nature of community preservation these days - all banging the drum for teardowns and sellouts and no one the preservation community reaching out to assist.
Those people, like landmarking, only care about their communities and not interested in sharing and helping us out.
To hell with them.
Someone suggested submitting and application for a historic landmark district in downtown Hunters Point, critical after the tear down of 10-63.
The Queens West folks couldn't care less ("if you can help us with a library we would be interested" said one)
The older folks just shrugged and said "its a shame but they tell us its progress" - (another product of the lack of a public education program for community preservation in this city)
And some of the younger folks, well, they are just waiting to cut a deal ("there is nothing you can do" they say as they carefully eye their rolodex for a developer's number.)
It is sad to see a community lose its heart and commit suicide.
It doesn't have to be like this. We will not forget who is responsibile for this. Names will be mentioned when the dust settles.
H-m-m-m.....
an overpriced room with a view
and no nearby mocha lattes at cyber cafes!
Serves ya right ya dopes!
Hope your employment opportunities
keep pace with your mortgage payments.
if the community just organized an anti-development rally I bet that would help some. Just get a few volunteers to go around door to door to home owners in the area with some flyers.
no supermarket? no problem, that's why there's FreshDirect
Curbed sucks. There's adverts for realty whore houses everywhere on that site.
I happen to own property and I am NOT happy with the development because my block is one of the blocks that will eventually be deemed a blight to the neighborhood because the zoning is not going to be changed.
So you're going to have all these row houses on 47th road that are going to look like a "ghetto"compared to the new luxury buildings. That will then be the fuel for developers to go to the DOB with to say that the zoning needs to be changed and they'll try to pull some sort of eminent domain bullshit about how they need to build a library or something on my block.
I cannot wait for next summer and the next big blackout. Let's see how quickly power is restored to the rich new residents while the 1 and 2 family homeowners go without. And, of course, it will all be Con Ed's fault. Again.
The jealousy on this blog is amazing. Let's never build anything bigger, nicer or better than what is currently on the ground, - that's a great policy.
The jealousy on this blog is amazing. Let's never build anything bigger, nicer or better than what is currently on the ground, - that's a great policy.
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Oh, like democracy, it has it faults, but it sure beats turing over the resources of the city to the tender mercies of developers, eh lads?
another one of those creeps from "Curbed."
Wait until the air runs out
of some of these overinflated yuppies.
The "fruit"
of the sub prime mortgage market collapse
isn't finished ripening on the trees!
Financial wizards are expecting phase two to hit.
Perhaps some of you "over investors"
will get your turn in the proverbial "barrel"!
"The jealousy on this blog is amazing. Let's never build anything bigger, nicer or better than what is currently on the ground, - that's a great policy"
The policy is preservation. It's done all over that little island across the East River.
The only true part of your idiotic statement is that things are definitely getting bigger. I have been living through this contruction boom in LIC from Day 1 and nothing is nicer or better than what was originally there. But you wouldn't know that because you either a) just moved here or b) are a realtor/developer whore who lives in the 'burbs.
"no supermarket? no problem, that's why there's FreshDirect"
FreshDirect is the yuppies' lifeline. Interesting . . .
Fresh Direct is on Borden Ave. They park their trucks outside and leave them there all night. Very interesting...
Nothing is better than what was originally there? So an unused dingy factory building is better than a luxury condo building. An empty, dirty former powerplant building is better and nicer than the renovated luxury high-rise. This is why comments like yours are not taken seriously.
"So an unused dingy factory building is better than a luxury condo building."
The city should be offering tax breaks to companies to inhabit the unused dingy factory buildings instead of giving developers tax breaks to overdevelop our neighborhoods. The jobs would stay in the neighborhoods where the people who work in them live. Or used to.
"An empty, dirty former powerplant building is better and nicer than the renovated luxury high-rise."
I would say so, yes. There was no reason the developer had to destroy that building. They would have been better off tearing the damn thing down than to make a complete mockery of it.
This is why comments like yours are not taken seriously.
the city might've also torn down some of the out-of-business factories and turned the properties into small parks for residents. I'll bet even most of the pro-development yuppies, like the commentator above, would've appreciated that.
Factory jobs are gone because of globalization of labor, which the city has no control over. Tax breaks would do nothing to bring the jobs back.
So instead of saving the exterior structure of the powerplant, you would have preferred it to have been knocked down. I thought the commenters here were for saving structures, not demolishing them.
"Factory jobs are gone because of globalization of labor, which the city has no control over."
The factory jobs went to NJ and Westchester. That we do have control over.
The smokestacks were the distinguishing characteristic of the power plant. They were demolished. Now the building looks like a big piece of brown crap with orange topping.
For those who wish to educate themselves:
The Big Squeeze
Another history lesson:
Survey Says Mid-Sized Companies Debate Leaving
1) A LACK OF AFFORDABLE REAL ESTATE IS THE NUMBER ONE PROBLEM FOR SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS IN NEW YORK.
2) BUSINESSES FORCED OUT OF MANHATTAN BY SKYROCKETING RENTS FIND LITTLE SPACE AVAILABLE IN THE OUTER BOROUGHS.
3) THE SPACE CRUNCH IS CAUSING THE CITY TO LOSE JOBS IN HIGH PAYING INDUSTRIES LIKE MANUFACTURING, HIGH TECHNOLOGY AND BIOTECHNOLOGY.
4) THE SPACE CRUNCH IS LARGELY A FACTOR OF WAREHOUSING BY PRIVATE LANDOWNERS AND THE CITY'S FAILURE TO AGGRESSIVELY ENCOURAGE DEVELOPMENT OF VACANT AND UNUSED INDUSTRIAL PROPERTIES.
"...the city must abandon the pattern of benign neglect that has essentially allowed real estate developers to make their own planning policy. The Planning Department's decision to re-examine much of the city's commercial zoning laws presents an opportunity to address the needs of industrial firms."
"The city must work with local development officials and industry leaders to designate certain areas as industrial sanctuaries, where businesses would not be subject to zoning changes for a guaranteed number of years. This would protect business owners from speculative real estate practices and the obstacles of working in a neighborhood that is becoming more residential, allowing them to sign long-term leases and re-invest in their company's growth.
...outerborough areas like Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Long Island City and Red Hook are ideal candidates for industrial safe havens. With these havens, the city will be able to proceed with rezoning some industrial neighborhoods for residential use while addressing the needs of manufacturers."
The city did exactly the opposite and blew it royally.
Thanks for linking to articles that are over 8 years old. How about this one:
http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/issueoftheweek/20041129/200/1195
Or:
http://faculty.lagcc.cuny.edu/dnahas/pdf/factory_work_shifts_to_mexico_after_nafta_goes_to_asia.pdf
Since you like the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/19/business/worldbusiness/19factory.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
The city is recognizing that it can sustain a light industrial in certain sectors, but those large-scale factory jobs are now overseas, and the best way to adjust is to develop the LIC waterfront into a world-class residential area.
The article I linked to was about small and mid-size businesses, not large scale factories.
the commentator, himself, seems to be 8-years-old: stuck on having his way and refusing to listen to reason.
Perhaps a realtor or staffer in the Bloomberg administration.
I have to laugh at the link to the Swingline article Mr. Anonynous used to boost his argument, since Swingline wasn't in LIC, it was in Sunnyside on Queens Blvd, was nowhere near the LIC waterfront, and to my knowledge was not turned into luxury condos.
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