Tuesday, June 1, 2010

City not being straight with motorcycle club

From the Times Ledger:

History sure seems to repeat itself for the Queensboro Motorcycle Club.

The biker group was unceremoniously uprooted from its original clubhouse among the old ash heaps of central Queens in 1939 to make way for the creation of Flushing Meadows Corona Park in time for that year’s World’s Fair, according to Bill Goldstein, the club’s president.

The resilient club, which turns 100 this year, was never compensated for its property, Goldstein said, but it pushed on and eventually found a new slice of Queens in Willets Point, where members built a modest clubhouse behind a chain-link fence between two warehouses on 34th Avenue.

But time and the inattention of city officials took its toll on their new digs, and the Iron Triangle turned from bad to worse as the years passed. And it looks like the Queensboro riders may be rolling into the sunset once again.

The city never installed sewers, running water, sidewalks or other urban amenities in Willets Point and the 62-acre section of land is in a new administration’s sights.

The plans for Willets Point leave the bikers in a lurch as they attempt to continue their gatherings, rides and community service activities from a point with an uncertain future. Goldstein said the club pays $4,000 a year in taxes and he asks only that the city tell them what will become of them in coming years.

“We understand that this is an area of contention and that no one wants to breathe a word about it,” he said over sodas in the club’s wood-paneled meeting room. “But we pay $4 grand a year and we get nothing for it. We get no road repair, no sidewalks, no streetlights, there’s no sanitation. This place is an absolute pigsty.”

Or, as club member James Frost put it last week, “it looks like Beirut now.”

Years of unattended potholes and ruts have turned the roads of Willets Point into a minefield for motorcyclists, and earlier this month a member of the club slowly riding to the clubhouse hit a nearby pothole, sustained minor injuries and damaged his bike, according to club members.

The state of disrepair has reached a breaking point, members said, and member Jan Borodo has been compiling a file of the club’s repeated requests for repairs. Borodo has a file with dozens of copies of documents he has sent to Bloomberg’s office, the city Department of Transportation, 311, Community Board 7 and a number of news outlets in hopes of getting basic repairs done — all of which have yielded little or no results.

The group’s members said they do not want to fight the city — they only want to know what lies ahead. Goldstein said the group is willing to take a fair relocation deal or to stay if the city makes improvements.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tell 'em to move to College Point. That's where the city sends its problems. I'm sure that the people in CP won't make any noise or noise complaints. After all, their elected officials are totally spineless!!!!

Anonymous said...

What do these bikers mean by potholes ?
Willets point has valleys and 14 inch deep CRATERS.
The street resemble a missile test range.
Its gonna take more then writing letters to make something happen.

D. Truth said...

Does anyone else see the irony?

http://www.yournabe.com/articles/2010/05/27
/astoria_times/news/at_asphalt_20100527.txt

Anonymous said...

Darn crazy reckless bikers with their loud biker antics.

Anonymous said...

Bikers can go to hell.

Anonymous said...

Bikers can go to hell.

Why would they want to associate with the likes of you?

Anonymous said...

They're sexy THAT'S WHY.

And from the way you talk - in comparison to you - they're EXTREMELY hot!

Anne Onymous said...

Babs has a new name...Anonymous. Still obnoxious as always.

Anonymous said...

And once again the trolls are diverting attention from the real essence of this post. The club has paid for services they are not receiving. And once again city officials are caught in a lie. Focus people! FOCUS!!!

Anonymous said...

I think it is a disgrace that the city took their money all these years & never provided any services that taxpayers throughout the city receive ~ If there were no services or infrastructure there should have been no money taken ~ It's about time they get some compensation ~ a nice lump sum of money would be great !!

Anonymous said...

Hard to feel bad for these guys if they've been dumb enough to put up with this for half a century. Just move to an industrial area that HAS water and sewers and roads.

Anonymous said...

Yeah,hard to feel bad..........if they didn't pay,the city would have taken their land! So tell us,what should they have done?

JMS said...

my dads a part of this club and whoever says bikers can go to hell should really rethink who there talking about the men in this club are all like my uncles and they dont all there asking is for some repairs