Monday, October 27, 2008

Marge's malarkey

Some years back, residents of homes near the intersection of 59th Street and Flushing Avenue in Maspeth approached Assemblywoman Marge Markey and asked her to use her clout to petition the Parks Department for a greenstreet at this large piece of city-owned property which was (and still is) being illegally used as parking.
From across the street, you can see just how large the site is. It would provide plenty of space for a garden and a sitting area.

This is how Marge delivered for her constituents: She got them a greenstreet - on the other side of a 4-lane truck route, in a more industrial setting and in a space that is a fraction of the size of the originally requested site.

33 comments:

Anonymous said...

Marge Markey in action. She'll ignore your requests until you go away.

Anonymous said...

She'll ignore your requests until you go away. This is MM classic MO, ignore, ignore & ignore you till you go away.

MM is clueless, do nothing pol whom exists to vote with the party in exchange for her jon, period - classic boiler room POl puppet.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone else wonder who collects the fees for the illegal parking?

Nobody parks for free.

Hmm?

Anonymous said...

I bet Marge asked if Flushing Avenue even ran through her district.

Anonymous said...

Marge also ignored the St. Savior's park proposal.

Anonymous said...

what are you complaining about? that looks like a beautiful place for the neighbors to sit and relax...

Anonymous said...

I don't know anything about Markey, but this is baseless. If you bothered to to approach her office to follow up, they could have shown you that they tried.

The fact that the other one was planted should have tipped you off that the 59th St. triangle has other "issues".

Before anyone goes "ah-ha", it has nothing to do with parking.

Anonymous said...

"I don't know anything about Markey, but this is baseless."

You probably work for Markey.

"If you bothered to to approach her office to follow up, they could have shown you that they tried."

That's what her useless newsletters are for. Nothing in there about this.

"The fact that the other one was planted should have tipped you off that the 59th St. triangle has other "issues"."

How does the fact that it wasn't planted prove anything other than the people didn't get what they requested and instead ended up with a booby prize with no explanation?

Anonymous said...

here's a shock: an anti-markey item on this blog. what, no pro-tony nunziato press release to go along with it?

Ant said...

"How does the fact that it wasn't planted prove anything other than the people didn't get what they requested and instead ended up with a booby prize with no explanation?"


It isn't city-owned property.

Happy now?

Queens Crapper said...

Borough: QN Block: 2683 Lot: 1
Police Precinct: 104
Owner: DEPT RE-CITY OF NY
Address, Zip Code: 59-07 59 STREET 11378
Lot Area: 7637 sf
Lot Frontage: 189' Lot Depth: 131'
Number of Buildings: 0 Year Built: 0
Number of Floors: 0
Bldg Gross Area: 0 sf
Residential Units: 0 Total # of Units: 0
Land Use: 11
Zoning: R4
Commercial Overlay: C2-2
Zoning Map #: 13C

Dept. of City Planning, PLUTO 07C © 2008

Ant said...

The "Dept of Re-City" is how City Planning says "we don't really know". PLUTO is notoriously inaccurate.


It's not city-owned property.

Queens Crapper said...

1 South Street is also listed as DEPT RE-CITY OF NEW YORK. You going to tell me that the city doesn't know who owns that either? Because the Parks Department seems to be submitting building permit applications for it.

Borough: MN Block: 3 Lot: 10
Police Precinct: 1
Owner: DEPT RE-CITY OF NY

Address, Zip Code: 1 SOUTH STREET 10004
Lot Area: 123800 sf
Lot Frontage: 362' Lot Depth: 177.33'
Number of Buildings: 2 Year Built: 1960
Number of Floors: 3
Bldg Gross Area: 123800 sf
Residential Units: 0 Total # of Units: 1
Land Use: N/A
Zoning: M1-4
Commercial Overlay: N/A
Zoning Map #: 12B

Dept. of City Planning, PLUTO 07C © 2008

Ant said...

Didn't I say PLUTO is notoriously inaccurate. Why would you continue to base property ownership on something City Planning would publish?

No more clues, that's been plenty.

Good luck

Anonymous said...

What statistics do you have to show it's notoriously inaccurate? And who owns the property?

Anonymous said...

I would certainly hope the city would know who owns what because then how do they determine who owns property taxes? Who has been paying the taxes on this property all these years?

Anonymous said...

Not sure if anyone bother checking, but if you look on Acris, it looks like what might have been a gas station, was leasing the space from....THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Not the city, but the state.

So many of you are quick to start attacking others for their opinions, but no one bothered to take the 10 minutes out of their busy blogging schedules to check the actual facts.

Anonymous said...

So you mean to tell me that this is state-owned property and Marge is a state official and couldn't get anywhere with it? That's even more pathetic.

Ant said...

Oh..warmer.

State owned property that the City won't go near.

One guess as to why. If you get it, then you'll realize why it never made it into any newsletter.

Queens Crapper said...

If you're going to say "contamination" then that is a pretty dumb reason. It's paved over (in other words "capped") and dropping some benches and planters on top would really not be such a difficult thing to do. The gas tank park is being built on a brownfield for pete's sake; I think a little petrol under the sidewalk is manageable.

And by the way, Toxics Targeting doesn't show a spill there. But I am sure you will say those maps are notoriously inaccurate as well.

Ant said...

I have no experience with that site, so I can't tell you anything about it. Your own example of 1 South Street should have I told you the record was inaccurate. of course you can always contact the dept of re-city and see what they have to say... good luck.

Apart from it not being city-owned and therefore not eligible as a greenstreet site, your analogy is right on the money with the gas tanks site... a whole park there, but not as much as a tree in the ground at the other (planters are bad for trees).

The next step is to piece together why the City won't acquire it. Here's a hint, the State is more than willing to surrender it.

Queens Crapper said...

The point was that the 1 South Street site is obviously owned by the city and listed as such in their system, so this site likely is as well. There also are no trees on the triangle on the other side of the street which was planted, so I am not sure what point you were making there. The community asked for a greenstreet, not a park. Greenstreets are typically gardens with shrubs and flowers.

Anonymous said...

The community should just do it themselves. No one will say or do anything. This is freakin' Queens.

Anonymous said...

Looks like Marge is ducking yet another debate. I guess you only show up to debate when you think you may get the endorsement of the group sponsoring it and not so that your constituents can hear what you have to say and decide for themselves.

Anonymous said...

She ducked the Dutch Kills Civic debate, too!

Anonymous said...

"The community asked for a greenstreet, not a park. Greenstreets are typically gardens with shrubs and flowers."

And that is EXACTLY what they got. just not in the spot they would have like it in. Problem solved. Next issue.

Anonymous said...

No, this proves Marge is a joke. The people on the north side of Flushing Avenue asked her for a sitting area, and she provided a postage stamp sized garden on the other side of the truck route. That's just laughable.

Ant said...

She actually asked for both of them to happen.

Anonymous said...

And the garden with benches that people asked her to get, she failed getting, while the one no one wanted in the first place, she succeeded in getting. Another waste of tax dollars courtesy of Marge Markey.

Anonymous said...

Let's not forget the $5B lost because Marge and her pals voted to repeal the commuter tax. Thanks a lot, Marge Malarkey!

Ant said...

"And the garden with benches that people asked her to get, she failed getting, while the one no one wanted in the first place, she succeeded in getting. Another waste of tax dollars courtesy of Marge Markey."

What's so hard here people, I thought we established this isn't City owned property. 2 minutes after Parks would have installed anything the State could rip it up and pave it over. Markey could have chained herself to the doors at Albany and it still wouldn't happen.

It's all about liability.

If you don't understand, you need a civics lesson.

She probably screwed up a lot of other things, but this really wasn't one of them.

Anonymous said...

When did we establish that this wasn't city owned? And yeah, if it really IS state-owned, they could have ripped it up after it was installed, but the fact that the property has laid dormant for decades probably means that they probably wouldn't have. Especially not with the local assemblywoman behind the effort to save it.

Anonymous said...

Maybe if Marge was proactive, she would create a greenstreets program for state owned property.

But this is political patronage do-nothing hack Marge Markey. So we should expect nothing more than the absolute minimum from this seat warmer.