From the NY Times:
Trade show and hotel executives have complained that the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center is too small since the day the long, black-glass building opened in 1986 on the West Side of Manhattan.
Attendees at the National Retail Federation annual convention in January 2010 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan. It is one of the busiest in the nation but is too small for some shows.
But now that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and a Malaysian conglomerate are proposing to replace the Javits Center with the nation’s largest convention hall on a site 12 miles away in Jamaica, Queens, industry executives are not so sure it is a smart move.
Conventioneers and other visitors come to New York expecting to see Broadway shows during their down time, eat in famous restaurants and shop on Fifth Avenue, trade show managers and hotel operators say. None of that exists at the relatively remote Aqueduct racetrack in Queens, where the Malaysian company, Genting Group, hopes to build a 3.8-million-square-foot convention center and 3,000 hotel rooms and enlarge its existing gambling hall.
More to the point, they add, Aqueduct is a 60-minute subway ride from Times Square. They fear that some conventions, trade shows and conferences will decide to go elsewhere.
7 comments:
No shit!
Almost everyone could have told the Guv the same shit!
"Hey, goombah Andy...
where are the broads and the Broadway shows for us out of town guys to enjoy in remote Ozone park, Queens? We can find more fun in any local gin mill on the prairie back home".
This all all a smoke screen for both Gentry & javits center.
No convention center will be build at Ozone Park - the place is a dump and out-towners don't come here to spend money in Queens except use the airport. So someone will offer to rebuild the entire Javits center in exchange for a much wider foot print, provide big cash to acquire the site and incorporate the whole thing in a building that will be mixed convention/hotel/retail/condos on the best waterfront in NYC. that's what will happen.
Gentry will cough up / or someone else hopefully 10B to have rights to build on the existing track. NYS will see the money go directly to new transportation connections for that area and the remaining in Albany coffers.
WHat about all the crack whores we have? You mean the conventioneers wouldn't enjoy the VIBRANT! DIVERSE! cesspools of Queens???
The only way this could possibly be successful is if there's RAPID transit between it and Midtown. Like a 15 minute kind of deal. It's probably time to revive the Queens Super Express idea and get Genting to pay for it. Without it, this is just a stupid idea.
It seems to me that the guv is getting political campaign contributions from that Malaysian company that's going to run it!
So you want a convention center way out in Queens.
Away from Broadway, museums, fine restaurants and superb shopping. Why would anyone in their right mind want to inconvenience convention goers who would be stranded in Ozone Park waiting for a gypsy cab to take them to Manhattan?????? El Coumo better think this one over long and hard.
@Ridgewoodian The Super Express is back on the table, but there's no way it will ever take 15 mins.
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