This comes from the Queens Tribune.And from the NY Times:
The ultimate source of power in New York is a perennial and profoundly puzzling question. Some say it is wielded by a banking cabal; others by a fraternity of real estate developers. Tradition holds that power flows downward from the mayor and his aides in City Hall; cynicism that it has always bubbled up, often from the covert machinations of unions or the mob.
But for 20 percent of New York City, real power — 1,300 megawatts a day — comes from the 9,000-square-foot turbine room at the Astoria generating station, a huge industrial plant that burns each day like a tiki torch at the lonely farthest edge of northern Queens. Six stories high and barnacled on the floor with hulking steam-fed engines, the room brings electrical convenience to a sweeping half-moon of the city that extends more or less from Myrtle Avenue in Queens to the stands of Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.
20 comments:
Nobody...nowhere...can hold back the tsunami that's choking Astoria.
Alas...that's its fateful destiny... being adjacent to Manhattan.
I'm packed and closing on a new home next Monday in Auburndale!
Words wont stop NY County (Manhattan)
and all its woes from advancing across the East River.
The battle's already half over!
Learn to live with it or go east young man.
go east? fxxk that go south where at least it's warm.
Nobody...nowhere...can hold back the tsunami that's choking Astoria.
ok smarmy eastern queens, stand around with your hands in your pockets laughing.
you are next.
besides, the more resources that goes to western queens development means you get the short end of the stick to say being downwind from that pollution.
lets go over to astorians.com
lets see...
Brazlian music at .... sunny one bedroom basement apartment for $1600 ... why is the N train clogged this morning (you freaken moron, why do you think?) ... invition to local Vallone Democratic club meeting ...
nope, no mention of a power plant.
Easy to understand why. When someone mentioned a perpetully broken sewage treatment plant they eventually got thrown off the board.
How many extra power plants for that new R7 zoning that they announced at the zoning meeting in Riccardos a few days ago.
While we get lip service on power plants, new users are constantly being added to the grid. A new idea, re-route the Astoria power so that it is used in Astoria, and build the new power plants in the areas outside of Astoria where there are none now.
Watch how fast Bloomberg and friends would come out against new development if they had the toxic fumes to go with it.
How many extra power plants for that new R7 zoning that they announced at the zoning meeting in Riccardos a few days ago.
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That plan has the people in his area an afterthought.
Now we have the better part of the year to see where the resistance is, and figure out how to counter it.
Lets see...
MYTH
In Dutch Kills they are happy that now families can move to their area and go to schools in their area
REALITY
Sure, massive upzoning that permits 12 story buildings is not so you can enclose the porch for mom. And you will love those families and kids that will move in when those hotels get worn out and are converted to Section 8 warehouses and Russian mafia buys all those co-ops and moves in guest workers.
The rest of Queens will thank you when they have to commute through the urban nightmare the Plaza will become.
MYTH
Downzoning will take away your ability to maximize the potential of your property, important if you want to pass it down to your kids.
REALITY
The people that say that (next sentence "I love Astoria but no one in the family wanted the house sorry to see it go") want to sell to a developer (they are leaving a mess for their neighbors to cope with, but the system makes their property rights more important than those that stay)
With control of the newspapers, the local blog, community board, and what 'civics' exits (like Astorica Civic, UCCA, LICA) no organized resistance will exist to counter the steady prodevelopment drumbeat. The experience of Sunnyside Gardens where the community was split by lies spread by the clubhouse (remember the advice 'Honest Joe' Crowley gave to Woodside on landmarking) ensures a shoe in.
Not only on powerplants, one hopelessly overwhelmed hospital, sewers, schools, transit system and power grid, but they are proposing just what Queens needs: a second Roosevelt Avenue slum under the N/W line el.
The only hope for Astoria is that the surrounding areas wake up to the devasting impact this will have on their communities.
Astoria Myth #1
'if you don't like the shit sandwich we give you, you can always leave.'
Astoria Myth #2
'this plan is geared for growth'
Astoria Myth #3
'we will look at things like population and infrastructure after the plan is done'
Astoria Myth #4
'unlike other communities were zoning was started by the community, in Astoria no one wanted to do anything so by default it was started by Vallone'
Astoria Myth #5
'we like to run the community board very efficiently, on time, and without distractions'
ASTORIA IS ALSO OVERWHELMED BY A "PRESERVATION" COMMUNITY THAT DOES NOTHING!
We "smarmy" easterners might be next...in a number of decades (heh, heh, heh) or perhaps in your wildest imaginings long after you've been planted in the Elysian Fields!
But I sincerely doubt it.
Wanna match us, share for share, for city resources?
Not unless the East River wears away at least 5 miles of land between you and us will you see any major change out here.
We've got R1-2A zoning!
What have you got?
C'mon Ass-torian...cut your belly-aching and move if you hate your nabe so much!
You're spewing bile all over the borough but no action beyond words from you do we ever see.
Once again...
you're exporting your woes...trying to imply that your troubles are ours.
They're not!
However, we've generously helped you with yours in the past but you never return the favor...lazy manipulative SOBs!
You guys are already half done.
Time to brush on the hot sauce
and plate the meal.
Perhaps. But the BSA fucks us all in the end.
But I sincerely doubt it.
Wanna match us, share for share, for city resources?
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sure. crap is on target.
compared to the attention the city is lavishing on the tower people on the waterfront bayside is yesterdays story.
jerk. head up your ass - no wonder queens is f*ked up.
We're doing just fine in our bucolic eastern environs.
We don't have any "TOWERS" or "TOWER PEOPLE" in our R1-2A nabe to suck up the rest of our area's resources as you do.
Our services are superb...trees get trimmed, sanitation pick up on time, streets well cleaned, parks attended to, recently down zoned, good NYPD & FDNY response time, one of the best school districts in Queens, yadda, yadda.
If you westerners think you can reverse a trend that's been underway for decades...I'd suggest THAT YOU remove your heads from your arses!
The Astoria waterfront is already Manhattan East and spreading like the swine flu!
They are coming for you next. We are only the buffer zone. Remember
In Germany they first came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me —
and by that time no one was left to speak up. Pastor Martin Niemöller
thanks anon, but those folks in eastern queens, are not very bright. for most of the 20th century, they lived in big houses on tiny lots and thought they were the north shore or something.
while they remained the cultural and intellectual center of the boro it started its slide to its sorry condition of today.
so let them sit smug. they havn't the foggiest notion of what is in store for them once we are bulldozed into oblivion.
We've got R1-2A zoning!
What have you got?
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I think this shows perfectly the fault in the preservation community.
You have small groups not working with each other, but guarding and hording what privileges they gleamed from the system.
Unless you are like them, or have their resources, you have no room in the club (except to send in donations and the occasional mention in some newsletter)
This has to be changed or nothing will be changed.
Aren't you the one claiming to be a descendant of Edward Hart (drafter of the Flushing Remonstrance) and an ardent lover of the venerable 17th century Bowne house?
Then you must be that same person who refused to leave distant western Queens to help out the Bowne House, an American icon, during its hour of greatest need.
Oh, I see...that was our job out east and not yours out west.
So you're quite a hypocritical preservation/isolationist yourself fella.
H-m-m-m...it appears that the pot is calling the kettle black!
Us easterners have put our shoulders to the wheel to help out our western brothers and sisters many times on various preservation issues.
Unfortunately you guys and gals never seem to want to reciprocate.
Are you just lazy or is it that once we've served your needs it's back below stairs for us Mr. (or Mrs.) Ass-toria ?
Alchemists of old COULD NOT TURN LEAD INTO GOLD!
Neither can Astoria's shit be reconverted into prime residential living.
I don't like it either...but it's TOO FAR GONE ALREADY!
LIC; Dutch Kills; Hunters Point; Astoria...a "buffer zone"?
Heh, heh, heh...you're on the front line bub...way out there in the middle of "no man's land"!
Was that machine gun fire or jackhammers I just heard ?
I think both of us will be long gone before the major battle zone ever reaches...let's say...as far as Bayside or Little Neck!
Now stop tryin' to jack us all off
with your doomsday prophesies.
Move on or move out!
Next time..."buyer beware"!
I chose my nabe for its particular qualities and
as long as my hood endures for the duration of my lifetime...that's all that really matters.
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