Hey, do you think Helen might find time to include this topic in her big speech next week?The Slummification of Kissena Blvd
Half of the stores on the block are gated and closed — some stores have been empty for five years! Can’t the management company find any tenants? What happened to the bakery, the pharmacy, the seafood store, the stationery store, the women’s clothing store? Surely some business can make a profit here? People are afraid to walk outside at night because everything looks so abandoned. Why has this happened?
Even if the management company does want to sell the entire property, shouldn’t they at least be responsible for its upkeep? What about all the garbage and graffiti everywhere? Why should I be embarrassed to show my wife the “old neighborhood?” Why should my mother have to walk past the junk in the parking lot? People still LIVE in the neighborhood.
I talked to a few people in my mother’s building and they are very unhappy with the way Kissena Boulevard looks. Some say they would even move away, if they could afford it. The shopping area is pretty disgraceful, and much of the blame must go to the management company. They have played a major role in making the area look like a slum.
(This made me want to cry and I don't even live there.)
8 comments:
What I find funny is that this website is totally opposed to expanding the dormitories at SJU yet Kissena Blvd is one area that would directly benefit econmically from an additional 485 to 750 students going to school and living at SJU along with the faculty that would teach them as well as the support personel and services that would also benefit the area economically.
Maybe everyone should look at the big picture and not their small, tightly defined world.
The point the other blogger made is that this area is not depressed economically. The stores are not closed because no one shopped there. They are closed because the landlord wouldn't renew their leases because he's holding out for a big-box tenant. How would bringing hundreds of SJU students to the neighborhood change this?
Why should we bother reading when we can just blindly write about how great the SJU dorm, which won't even be near Kissena Blvd, will be?
We go to St. John's. Please don't expect us to read.
This is an absolutely unfair assessment of what is going on at Kissena. I lived in the area for 20
years and still go back regularly.
The fact is there are maybe 5 or 6 empty storefronts in the area. OUT OF AT LEAST 30! The vast majority of the stores are open and doing very well. For example, there is a photo of the closed laundrymat. Do you know why its closed? Because there is a better laundry directly across the street which put them out of business. How come the pharmacy is closed? Because there is a Rite Aid across the street that put them out of business. To call Kissena Blvd. a slum is so outrageous and insulting to the people who care about this neighborhood.
Ive been trying to open a pharmacy in one of the vacant stores and the landlord is not giving me any information regarding the lease/price etc. can anyone help me with this
My family still lives near Kissena Blvd, after 50 yrs. The Mgt does not show interest in having stores fully functioning there. I have been informed by reps of many of the stores as they were closing, that the reason was due to mgt desiring higher rent. The reason was not due to competition among the stores because both pharmacies and both laundromats existed side by side for many years before their closings. Several stores that would have prefered to stay, simply were not able to do so. As a result of these closings, the neighborhood has taken on a slum appearance. It is disgraceful to see one management company make the hundreds of people who reside in the neighborhood, sad and embarrassed to continue living there.
Also, give me a break with the SJU expansion. They are trying to expand too closely to Queens College. Have some respect. If any development occurs on Kissena Blvd, it certainly should go to Queens College, an overpopulated college that deserves more space. SJU is just being greedy.
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