Jamaica could be New York's next tourist hotspot — at least that's the dream of the new head of the neighborhood's Business Improvement District.
Rhonda Binda is planning to organize tours around the neighborhood and launch a series of pop-up installations that would highlight local history and cultural achievements.
Binda, 37, a former White House employee who got her law degree at Georgetown University, became the BID's executive director last month.
A Jamaica native who currently lives in the area, she said she is teaming up with the Queens Tourism Council to organize themed tours around the neighborhood for both locals and travelers who have long layovers at JFK.
“We can have people come for a walking tour or a shopping tour,” she said.
During the tours, participants would be able to learn about places important in jazz and hip-hop history, visit old churches or eat at restaurants serving a variety of ethnic cuisines, she said.
Oh brother. Tourists with layovers at JFK? Concentrate on locals. How about starting with cleaning the place up? People used to travel from Brooklyn, Nassau and all over Queens to shop on Jamaica Ave at one time. Now you couldn't pay them to go there.
22 comments:
Jamaica has been a dump for over 40 years with little or no improvement. Even with the $millions poured into the Jamaica BID , nothing has helped, except for keeping some expensive staff on the payroll. Filthy run down conditions along Jamaica Ave, hundreds of sidewalk vendors, a filthy subway station, and homeless people and shelters all over the area, make this the last place anyone with smarts would want to visit. So what has the staff at the BID and Jamaica Development Corp been doing all of those years? I see no positive results.
Just another marketing ploy forced by developers. Don't believe the hype!
Get real! Jamaica is and has been a horrible business district for years. I was there one weekend last summer and I felt very nervous and uncomfortable walking around Jamaica Avenue .I didn't bother to stop for lunch but instead made a bee line to the subway station, which was filthy and disgusting as well. It was a very bad experience and I will never go back.
Good luck with your project, Rhonda.
Is that shoe emporium, The Sneaker Pimp, still in business on 168th Street off of Jamaica Avenue?
Lol just put a Starbucks there and the liberals will follow. I hope she takes them on tours to south jamaica....."and over here on your left is a man laying dead on the sidewalk with a bullet hole through his head" good luck selling south jamaica as part of that tourist attraction. Also show the tourist the wonderful dollar stores owned by gross digesting people.
This woman reminds me of Cory Booker.
Another bit from the world of unreality. It is the next hot spot, the next neighborhood for development and now it is the next spot for tourism. Make up your mind. As a local resident, Jamaica is a mess and my photos do not lie.
I want whatever drug these folks are taking.
I applaud Binder for her lofty goals and ambition (I mean she just started the job, so of course she is all gung ho) but let’s be realistic. Jamaica still has way too much crime, way too much garbage, horrible retail and food choices that the type of quality people that Binder is talking about would not go to and so many of our elected officials are lazy, corrupt and useless and have not done a damn thing to help improve it. Assembly Member Williams Scarborough and Councilman Ruben Wills have been arrested on corruption charges and their track record is nothing to brag about. Former Senator Malcolm Smith has a trial on bribery this month and former Senator Shirley Huntley was just let out of jail last year on corruption charges. Elected officials like Assembly Member Vivian Cook and Senator Leroy Comrie have been completely useless in all their years as far as helping the community and have been more of a hindrance than anything.
Every week I read more bullshit about Jamaica, but take it from someone who lives here, NO TRUE, maybe 10 years from now.
Restaurants and old churches (except, of course, Saint Monica's) - is that all you've got?
A total waste of money. Spend it on cleaning Jamaica up.
crossing the van wyck into jamaica is like the old axiom " crossing the wrong side of the tracks".
b.i.d.'s specialize in disinformation.money being wasted fostering the illusion of that bogus lonely planet feature that should be spent on upkeep of the streets,sidewalks and more cops for the precincts located there.
What a FARCE! And don't believe what Lonely Planet says. They were paid off by developers!
As a tour guide, I feel that there is potential on Jamaica Avenue between Sutphin and Merrick Boulevards: you have the Rufus King House, Jamaica Performing Arts Center, Grace Church and Tabernacle Church (former Valencia Theater)
What Jamaica could use visually are an expanded transit hub: you have two right now on 165th Street and at Parsons Boulevard; and a Central Library that looks better than a modernist concrete box on the outside.
I don't mind the sneaker stores because that's what I expect from Jamaica- really affordable clothing.
That's even dumber than pushing Flushing as a tourist destination. Where are the attractions to foreign visitors? Maybe the island of Jamaica is an exciting tourist spot. Jamaica Queens is certainly not.
Flushing has a relatively new BID. It has not done squat there, nor will their newly revitalized chamber of commerce. Somebody is getting a salary for Jamaica BID director.
This is the start of gentrification. Jamaica is a travel hub (LIRR, Subway and buses, Train to plane). They are building luxury condos and the chains stores are slowly moving in. Small businesses are closing, they're tearing down buildings on archer ave and building who knows what. Just wait I even see hipsters walking around. It's going to change, get ready.
get rid of all the people who inhabit the area, and you MIGHT have a chance to save Jamaica.
This is the start of gentrification. Jamaica is a travel hub (LIRR, Subway and buses, Train to plane). They are building luxury condos and the chains stores are slowly moving in. Small businesses are closing, they're tearing down buildings on archer ave and building who knows what. Just wait I even see hipsters walking around. It's going to change, get ready.
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As a Jamaica resident, I would rather see any kind of change including gentrification that the crap that is there now. Jamaica has been a major mess for decades and the residents there and the elected officials are too blame for the condition. Jamaica Avenue is a hot bed of shit and a mess and Hillside Avenue is even worse, a bunch of filthy third world dreck.
So if it gets gentrified, so be it, I rather have that than the shit that is their now and the shit people. And since I am not a renter, all the better.
Actually luxury apartments and a fancy hotel are going to be put up at the Archer/Sutphin Blvd.
Again the people there and the lazy elected officials are too blame for the decline of Jamaica for decades. The apathy and the the elected officials not doing anything helped all add to the decline.
I am not going to sxpend one hour in travel to buy a pair of sneakers. Bring back Claytons and a few better ladies stores. When they say this girl is a native of Jamaica. Island or Jamaica or dumpy Jamaica, Q@ueens?
There used to be two Jamaicas....Black Jamaica and Jewish Jamaica....south Jamaica and Jamaica Estates. Maybe gentrification is the only way to redeem territory held by a troublesome underclass. Yet it does smack of racist design.
Back in the 70's, my wife, a rather small gal at 4'11" used to go to a shoe store named Leonard's Bootery (LONG GONE) on 164th Street (I think). It was the only shoe store in NYC that carried a large selection of shoes in her small size.
Parking on the street was fairly easy; the streets were relatively clean and safe.
I have not been there in 40 years; but from what I have seen on Queens Crap, what has happened to Jamaica is a disgrace.
SAD!
BRAVO to Ms. Binder! Something positive for a change! Keep up the good work!
Good Luck. It's a dangerous shit hole. stay out of the MacDonald's or the Wendy's. Cops always being called there.
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