From Crains:Nearby on Vernon Boulevard, the neighborhood's longtime main drag, business is good, although well below levels many predicted all the new development would bring. Some fault the East Coast folks for keeping to themselves too much and exploring their new neighborhood too little.
"They're too transient," said Donna Drimmer, owner of Matted, a gallery and framing shop. "Most of them come from Manhattan, and they still spend their time there, before they eventually move to the suburbs."
That's funny. All we've been hearing about these past 10 years or so is that the Great American City has been reborn and that no one is moving out to the suburbs anymore. So much for that. I guess people still want trees and backyards in the long run and not soulless self-contained micro-communities that sell to buyers hooked on the idea that they'll never have to leave the confines of their overpriced condos and mingle with the unwashed masses except to commute one stop to Manhattan. This is why we keep hearing, "It's still up-and-coming, but just wait until the next development opens!" The charm that drew people to LIC was destroyed by greed and has been reduced to a temporary stop on the way to greener pastures. Great job, city planners!
24 comments:
Hate LIC. No character. No charm. No warmth. Just vampire developers and landlords.
""Most of them come from Manhattan, and they still spend their time there, before they eventually move to the suburbs."
Wrong. the types living in those buildings moved there for the trendy, new and cheaper spaces that are close to Manhattan. The 'burbs are dead to them and most other young people these days.
This BTW, is a Nation-wide trend.
The principal problem in developing a sense of neighborhood are the commercial landlords who kill any new, promising business as soon as it gets legs and buzz
M- Wells is an example.
So what's the real story, Jerry?
Is it all about bailing out that troubled Pilgrim State project in Suffolk County?
Gerald and son, David Wolkoff, want to build even more glitzy, steel and glass ego erections--in an already glutted LIC real estate market in a polluted, extremely noisy location.
These slumlords claim to be building two 40+ story towers of babble--over the bones of "5 Pointz-- a world renown tourist destination.
That sounds like a lot of BS to a lot of savvy business heads out there.
More likely, they will flip the property to reap a quick profit on dad's mid 1970s meager purchase price of the Davis Street property.
Someone once coined a phrase that best describes these soul-less beehives, "the architecture of brutality".
I think that the shoe fits very well.
I also remember that when the CitiCorp building first went up...an architect had written a letter to the New York Times which noted that, "A giant green glass weed has sprung up in LIC".
This was the first of many more invasive weeds to come.
After newcomers are there for a while they'll be more ingrained in the community and break away from Manhattan shopping & dining.
"This is the year," Crappy, "This is the year!"
The people are not stupid - who wants to hang out next to a superfund site, eat in restaurants bathed in toxic sewage a few months ago, and raise their kids downwind from Manhattan's fumes and pollution.
After the buildings begin to age they will be treated like the rest of Queens - the gorgeous mosaic will demand entry and will start to move in. The hot money that built them will demand fast return and landlords will only be too happy to open the gates to everyone and anyone.
Think of all those grand apartment buildings built in central Queens and Flushing back in the 60s. The smell of cooking rat burgers in the hallways. Thin walled buildings quickly thrown together - not aging gracefully - and from what we know of Queens landlords - will quickly start to show their abuse.
Let the record show that Jimmy Van Bramer tossed his old friends and neighbors under the bus for this -their trusting support purchased for a dog run there and a bike helmet giveaway here at a Queensbridge weenie roast.
once the kids grow up and have kids of their own they move out to the burbs where the schools are good.
"Wrong. the types living in those buildings moved there for the trendy, new and cheaper spaces that are close to Manhattan. The 'burbs are dead to them and most other young people these days."
The statistics seem to prove otherwise. It's the cities that are losing people, not the burbs.
Take a gander at this:
"From 2000-09, the metropolitan areas that suffered the biggest net domestic migration losses resemble something of an urbanist dream team: New York, which saw a net outflow of a whopping 1.9 million citizens, followed by the Los Angeles metro area (-1,337,522), Chicago, Detroit, and, despite recent improvements, San Francisco-Oakland. The raw numbers make it clear that California has lost its appeal for migrants from other parts of the U.S., and has become an exporter of people and talent (and income).
And despite the cheap money Bernanke-Geithner policies of the past few years that have benefited giant banks centered in the bluest big cities, people continue to leave these areas. The 2010-11 numbers show the deck chairs on the migratory titanic have stayed remarkably similar, with New York still ranking first among the 51 biggest metro areas for net migration losses, followed by Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit and Philadelphia. In most of these cases only immigration from abroad, and children of immigrants, have prevented a wholesale demographic decline."
Why do we need to overdevelop the hell out of the city then? Are we subsidizing the building of pied-a-terres?
Sorry Alan, this is not Queens of 1955, but a Queens of 2015 - the earlier was a place where parents moved, then started a family.
Today, hipsters meet, mate, and move as soon as sonny is born.
These people are not going to raise their kids in Queens - if they have the money it would be Park Slope or the West Side or Soho and a private school with Lincoln Center and Prospect or Central Park at the doorstep, not Newtown Creek flooding out the local nursery school with hydrocarbons.
If not, it will be the burbs in Connecticut or Barkley Heights in Jersey.
I'm not sure what the issue is here. People live in a place, then they move to another place when it suits them or when they need to, right? It's great to live in the city, and then at some point it becomes great to live in the country or burbs. There's plenty of space for everyone, folks.
The problem is that stable communities are ones where people become involved and want to stay, not ones with high turnover of residents.
If you are wondering why these buildings are built, aside from obvious greed, read:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-57595032/poverty-in-the-suburbs-hidden-and-growing/
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/suburban-dystopia-incoming
http://www.brookings.edu/events/2013/05/20-suburban-poverty#ref-id=20130520_Metro_Welcome
The suburbs are a dead end if you are not already wealthy.
These buildings cost more to live in than homes on Long Island.
"These buildings cost more to live in than homes on Long Island."
No, they don't.
L.I. and many 'burbs have high taxes, the homes are poor in energy efficiency meaning high heating/cooling, and of course the necessity of maintaining a car and high commuting bills.
Add to that the fact that the same sort of young people who buy/rent those new apts will need a mortgage to buy a home and the costs and inconvenience of a commute negate the attraction that the burbs used to have.
Google: Car ownership decline.
-You'll see another set of reasons why the burbs are doomed.
Queens is actually in a very good position to attract young people in this new environment.
It can offer a semi-suburban, low density setting to those who want it, and a denser more city-like environment for others.
All mostly without the need for a car.
The suburbs are a dead end if you are not already wealthy.
eh? what?
Look, see the pictures from Jamaica? Elmhurst? Steinway Street?
That is the people's image of Queens. Find a suburb that shares the same.
The point is that the city has pulled itself up from Needle Park as Queens continues to slowly tumble in to squalor.
The brand 'Queens' is a temporary transient stop for these people until they can find something better - and that will be the case - until the borough can clean up its act.
"It can offer a semi-suburban, low density setting to those who want it, and a denser more city-like environment for others.
All mostly without the need for a car."
Most of Queens requires a car to get just about anywhere within NYC. You are speaking from a very Manhattancentric view. Not to mention that many people who live on Long Island choose to work on Long Island, which means LIRR fees are not required. I'm not really sure where you're getting the info that homes out there are less energy efficient than homes in Queens. There are more trees on Long Island, which reduces the need for air conditioning, and the average home out there is not a McMansion with high ceilings. It's a modest detached home with a yard. Average price: $425,000 in Nassau County and $340,000 in Suffolk. In LIC: $800,000. In other words, they're moving to Long Island to be able to afford to raise kids. Having all your money tied up in a mortgage on an overpriced condo is not the way to do that.
As for car ownership, as of right now there are 117 vehicles for every 100 people with licenses, so it's not as if people are ditching their cars in droves for public transportation, which certainly hasn't gotten any better.
"Most of Queens requires a car to get just about anywhere within NYC. You are speaking from a very Manhattancentric view."
I'm speaking as a partner in five restaurant locations in Queens, the oldest opened in 1990 and the most recent 1998. I don't have or need a car to get to any of them..although if I lived out there it would be convenient.
Several of our managers come from L.I. and both my partners moved back into Queens for the lower taxes and easier commute.
"...a modest detached home with a yard. Average price: $425,000 in Nassau County and $340,000 in Suffolk. In LIC: $800,000.
You can not compare what are most wood frame houses 50-60 years old out in L.I. with what is generally a brick townhouse in L.I.C.
The comparison I sought to make was of renting an apt in Queens vs buying a house in the burbs which is often the only option.
As for the car ownership issue, if the stats in the reports hold true over the next 5-8 years you will see lower car ownership concomitant with younger people living in cities.
Areas like "Queens West" are a no-mans land...full of migrant workers who usually commute to Manhattan to earn their daily bread.
It might be cheaper than living there than in Manhattan proper, but it's an extremely poor substitute when all else is considered.
Eventually even these hipsters begin to age out.
Many of those raising a family make tracks out to greener, leafier, northeast Queens...from whence the Port Washington LIRR line makes travel to Manhattan a very short trip.
A family gets the most for its money in the more suburban areas of Queens where the grade school system is better and cheaper than sending your kids to a private school.
Rent in LIC costs more than a mortgage on Long Island. The extra money saved can pay the higher taxes.
If your restaurants are located near a subway, then of course you wouldn't need a car to get to them. But most people in Queens do not live within walking distance of a subway and therefore need a car unless they want to wait 30 minutes or more for a bus. If you lived out here, it would indeed be convenient to own a car. I love how people who don't live here have the nerve to tell people who do, what their needs are.
You will see lower car ownership because of population declines, not because more young people live in cities. More people are leaving cities than moving in.
Nothing resembling a real Queens neighborhood like Sunnyside or Briarwood is going to emerge out of Queens West. It's all about maximizing the SQ FT and the money from that.
(A real Queens neighborhood has a mix of single family homes, multiple family homes, small and large apartments, and retail streets of supermarkets, restaurants, small stores, houses of worship and schools.)
LI taxes are higher because the schools are better. same with NJ and Connecticut. when you have kids the priority is educating them.
unlike NYC where you have to apply to every HS and there is busing and kids from all over the city coming to a school, in the burbs the schools are zoned
i know someone in westchester in a good district and their kindergarten class had 18 kids and 3 teachers
RU kidding?
Most schools on Long Island suck, except for the ones located in "the right" towns.
Then you've got mega real estate taxes and expensive commutation to deal with.
Suburban sections of Queens are the better deals.
If your kids are education oriented (meaning that you're good parents) and not absorbed with electronic gadgetry...they go to specialized high schools in Manhattan or Bronx Science.
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