Thursday, October 11, 2007

Park at St. Saviour's would serve thousands

"According to the statistics collected by the Census Bureau in 2000, there are thousands of people who would be served by a park at the St. Saviour's site, as they live within .5 miles of it. A half mile is considered to be a 10 minute walk, according to PlanYC. And here's visual proof that the site is surrounded on 3 sides by houses. In addition, there are many workers in the industrial area that have used the site for respite in the past, and even more would today.

So when someone tells you the location sits amidst a cluster of factories and is therefore not a suitable location for a park, you can prove to him that he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.

Christina Wilkinson
Chair, Committee to Save St. Saviour's"

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

I haven't read Gallagher's name on here in a while... Are you guys feeling well?

Anonymous said...

It is clear that there should be a park at this location. These taxpayers should have access to a park that is not cut off from them by highways and polluted byways. Besides an important part of our past, it's precious open space in an area that has almost none.

Anonymous said...

It's sad that people are walking their dogs, riding their bikes and jogging in cemeteries because politicians never saw fit to set aside a large swath of Maspeth for recreational purposes.

Anonymous said...

It's even sadder that kids are playing in the parking lots of industrial warehouses and on railroad tracks when there is open space available where they could be safe.

Anonymous said...

a half mile is a nothing walk. I'd do that several times a week if I could have a neat park to spend time in.

Anonymous said...

Should a park go here? of course. Should the property be saves? of course.

You know, the real problem here is the public at a grass roots level wants to do something that has not been approved by the clubhouse.

The only time the public in Queens ever gets a chance to say something is if they parrot what they read in the paper (of course they only get one side of the arguement - as Con Ed and not overdevelopment is the cause of blackouts) or they read from a carefully scripted ledger (just about any community board meetting.)

If you guys win, all hell will break loose.

Anonymous said...

Why not look at this map?

http://maps.yahoo.com/;_ylc=X3oDMTExNmIycG51BF9TAzI3MTYxNDkEc2VjA2ZwLWJ1dHRvbgRzbGsDbGluaw--#mvt=s&trf=0&lon=-73.91225&lat=40.721982&mag=2

The satellite image tells a different story - you can clearly see the mix of industrial and residential buildings around the site, and how the majority is commercial/industrial. And don't forget that Maurice Park is only half a mile away. I'm not sure if there should be a park there or not, but you need to do better to convince people than the pictures and map that you have here.

Anonymous said...

Yet another reason to save the park....witness the massive flooding in the area this afternoon and then tell us that the city should allow the paving over of more open space. What a fool the last guy is.

Anonymous said...

I looked at the guy's map and see a huge residential community to the east of what was once a green oasis with a few warehouses and non-polluting factories mixed in.

Save St. Saviour's already.

Anonymous said...

Why did you include tracts 205.02, 229, 511 and 599 when they either barely touch the 0.5 mile buffer or lie entirely outside of it? Maurice Park is actually IN tract 511.

Anonymous said...

I didn't "include" anything. You enter the address and the distance, and it generates a map. Regardless, there are still thousands of people living within the buffer.

Queens Crapper said...

I fixed the map. Wow! What a difference. Instead of thousands of people, a park at St. Saviour's would serve....thousands of people!

229 is a cemetery and 205.02 is mostly M3, so there's not much of a difference if they are included or not.

Anonymous said...

The fact that there are that many people living on top of each other proves that there is need for more park space in this area. Let's not even go into the flooding that happened in the area today and that we can't afford to pave over more porous soil.

Anonymous said...

Why exclude 205.01? What park do those people have?

Anonymous said...

I think Mayor Mike meant more greenbacks
for politicos.....not more green space in NYC's future.

He's independently wealthy.....
but scum like Gallagher need kickbacks
from developers.

Maybe from the very same one
that owns the St. Saviour's site!

There....are you happy now...poster #1......
I've used Pinky's Christian name ? !!!

Anonymous said...

If you use your 0.5 mile buffer analysis, excluding tracts that barely touch the buffer zone, to compare local park sites in this area, you get:

St. Saviour's site - less than 7,000 total population.
Maurice Park - almost 20,000.
Juniper Valley Park - over 25,000.
Elmhurst Gas Tank site - over 29,000.

Anonymous said...

And anonymous, your analysis reveals that the city actually has the opportunity to prepare for the deluge of people that will be moving into this area over the next 3 decades by putting a park here to serve their needs before they come. Let's not forget that Queens is expected to absorb the largest share of the population increase, and that this M1 district is planned for residential in the future, as per the IBZ decision made in 3/06.

Anonymous said...

"St. Saviour's site - less than 7,000 total population."

Let the record show that the Mayor believes that 7,000 people in Queens do not deserve a park.

Anonymous said...

Christina - that is the best argument I've heard from you yet to support a park on this site. If there are plans to re-zone, convert or build in this immediate area for more residential use, then preliminary planning by creating a park would be worthwhile. If you notice, I haven't given an opinion on whether or not there should be a park; I have just clarified and presented facts that could be used to counter your point here. I don't think your argument that this in not a commercial/industrial area is as strong as your argument that this immediate area will soon grow into a more residential area. What is your source for saying that this area will be deluged with residential growth in the near future?

Anonymous said...

The City's Small Business Services Administration.

Queens Crapper said...

I'm laughing my ass off. City Planning considers cemeteries to be recreational space...CB5 profile. Hey kids, just go play amongst the tombstones.

Anonymous said...

I guess the city should rip out all the park amenities at Newtown Creek by their new DEP facility on Paidge Street then. It doesn't get more industrial than that.

This site clearly has the population now to warrant a new park. And in the future, with hundreds of thousands expected to move to Queens by the city's own estimate, this area is sure to become more built, with M1 areas converted to R districts. This is a no brainer. "We don't have money" is a poor excuse. For certain stupidity, we seem to have an endless supply of money.

Anonymous said...

always wondered about this: If a a community wanted to create a mini park on their own could it pool together loot and buy a (crappy)home in their neighborhood that went up for sale, demolish it, and then turn the plot into a park for residents? Maybe they might even get a bit of city funding for it, though I rather doubt it.

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