From WNYC:
Located in a brand new high rise building, complete with Times Square-style jumbotrons on its façade, Paris Baguette is just one example of new businesses trying to cash in on a neighborhood that’s bursting at the seams. A new traffic plan is being designed to address the chronic congestion. And the future build-out of nearby Willets Point, plus a large-scale project slated to replace the area’s main parking lot, are both in development. In short, New York City’s most visible Main Street is not slowing down.
And from the NY Times:
At first glance, it looks as if the recession has spared downtown Flushing from the shuttered storefronts and silent sidewalks in many New York City neighborhoods. Along Main Street, in the heart of Community Board 7, the sidewalks are crowded with shoppers clutching red plastic shopping bags, darting in and out of shops and haggling with street vendors over slippers and DVDs.
But that doesn’t mean that the area, known as one of the city’s other Chinatowns, isn’t struggling. Peter Koo, who was born in Shanghai and arrived in Flushing 26 years ago, notes that the effects are just more subtle. Business has dropped about 10 percent at the five pharmacies he owns there as shoppers cut back on beauty products like makeup, combs and mirrors.
As president of the Flushing Chinese Business Association and a founder of the Flushing Business Improvement District, he has also heard from fellow business owners running restaurants, bakeries, barber shops and beauty salons that business has dropped by as much as 30 percent and that owners have trimmed some workers’ weekly schedules to four days from six.
6 comments:
A cash economy.
Your guess is as good as mine as to what is going on in Flushing.
Flushing may be "bustling" but that doesn't mean it's thriving!
Far from it.
Could Peter Koo be manipulating the statistics ?
Flushing a transportation hub so there's always lots of people on the streets!
Oh...the illegal gambling dens and whore houses are doing fine with the help of "protection" from certain fringes in the 109th!
The "astute" media forgot all about the vacant Caldor's site.
That one hell of a piece of real estate to be empty and unused for over a decade.
These stats are not accurate because of all the illegal businesses going on. It's all cash.
Why are our taxes going up? Residences that are churches and not required to pay appropriate taxes. CASH businesses (no records). I guess I know where Johnny Liu's war chest is coming from.
Spend some time actually walking the streets on Flushing's busiest day...Sunday...instead of insinuating this and that
and observe for yourselves.
Cash business or recorded business...
I've personally witnessed a lot of foot traffic BUT A SERIOUS DECLINE IN BUYING!
The stores are relatively empty...just a lot of window shoppers.
AND THAT'S F-Liu-xing's BEST KEPT DIRTY LITTLE SECRET!
The exception seems to be...SURPRISE...Macy's.
They run great sales and
people are spending real money there.
Who'd have thunk it?
Flu-Shing is one of the biggest if not the biggest Underground economy's. Peter Koo is full of crap. 6 pharmacies and he's crying the blues. The restaurants are jam packed as the markets along Main, Kissena and Roosevelt. Price have gone up rather than down. Flu-Shing is thriving and will continue to do so. My wife shops there as the prices are cheaper than Waldbaum's and Pathmark. NYC government just let builders do what they wanted without a thought to parking spaces. You can get a rootcanal quicker than a parking space.
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