QUEENS, NY – "Borough President Melinda Katz stated the following in response to questions about applications filed by for-profit organizations recently with the City to shut down major portions of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park to the public in order to accommodate paid-admission events next summer:
“Queens is increasingly becoming a premier destination for entertainment, culture and tourism. While public events of any scale that enhance our borough are encouraged, I take issue when it is at the expense of cutting off public access to our treasured parks like Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, which is enjoyed by thousands of families and residents every week in the summer months. Doing so without a public review process would fly in the face of the very principle behind our public parks, which is space designated for public access and equity.
“The use of our public parks – especially one as utilized as Flushing Meadows-Corona Park – must be coordinated and planned under an official city policy, because the absence of one renders the entire process arbitrary and unfair. There must also be engagement with the affected community and a real accounting of the adverse and residual impacts on the surrounding neighborhoods. Quite frankly, it’s still unclear how limited resources expended for events of such scale would be returned to Queens and its families.
“These proposals to rent out precious public parkland to for-profit organizations for paid-admission events are therefore not acceptable at this time. It has never been done before in Queens, and without a fair city policy approved by the community to properly shape this significant precedent, we should not start now.”
Flushing Meadows-Corona Park hosts thousands of families every week in the summer months, and residents would otherwise be limited in access to alternative space for countless activities like soccer, softball, baseball, tennis, cricket, bicycling, family picnics, BBQs, birthdays, weddings and other special events.
If the applications submitted this week are granted, it would be the first time ever for Queens to lend its treasured public parkland to for-profit organizations for paid-admission events. The dates requested would displace several standing homegrown events enjoyed by tens of thousands of Queens residents including the annual World's Fair Anniversary Festival, the Louis Armstrong Festival and, of course, our beloved Mets."
(I suppose she fails to understand that the Mets are a for-profit organization that uses public parkland for paid-admission events? And she didn't seem to have a problem with a mall and a soccer stadium being built on public parkland, either, so...)
26 comments:
This was an actual shock to read. As if the boro president realized that the ramifications for these events and the privatization of public parks would be irresponsible and would disenfranchise the tax paying citizens of them.
And then we get to the end and it's just more half-assed pandering and ignorance.
It's clear that this was written to mollify the true citizens of Queens and give the impression that she has them at heart by symbolically not supporting these lousy festivals. Considering the tone-deaf and odious recent decisions by her fellow boro presidents in the Bronx and Brooklyn to let two modern gilded age events happen-the halloween party at a superfund site in greenpoint and an urban blight/poverty themed star fucking art exhibit thrown by predatory hyper developers at a real estate christening in the south bronx, oh the piano district.
http://therealdeal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/piano-district1-e1446128151206.jpg
Also clear is that these festivals will happen as she basically says she's powerless to stop it by saying IF the applications are submitted. But what can you expect from someone who thinks roosevelt island is in Queens.
As for the Wilpons and the Mets, they can live another day. Especially the way they gouged their stupid paying fans and blew off the others with their ripoff ticket prices in the playoffs. Consider their defeat,in addition to their lousy fielding and base running and daily late inning trouncing by the Royals, karma for the shit they have been pulling in the last decade trying to annex the area. (Next time Harvey, listen to the coaches and sit your ass down. Because Familia got the outs and the series would still be on. And drop that stupid dark knight nickname.)
RIP grantland
“The use of our public parks – especially one as utilized as Flushing Meadows-Corona Park – must be coordinated and planned under an official city policy, because the absence of one renders the entire process arbitrary and unfair.//
Note the operative words - MUST BE COORDINATED AND PLANNED UNDER OFFICIAL CITY POLICY.
Queens is run as a mini-fascist state separate apart from the rest of NYC with its own set of values imposed by a tiny clique that manipulates everything in their favor. Like any Hermit Kingdom, its shopworn and run down and about as appealing to tourists as being invited to a tedious political rally in N Korea.
Outside of a tiny handful of institutions that are propped almost entirely by borough hall funds (as opposed to earned income, endowments, and real fund raising that is the rule of order in the rest of the city) - it an enormous cultural wasteland.
Running something truly real and truly interesting seems to be beyond the ability of political hacks calling the shots and ordering everyone's lives - but these 'tourist' venues to do provide the ever important photo ops for the politicians, and for those institutions along the waterfront, a chance for a developer to play the role of a Medieval patron of the arts.
The reality of tourism in Queens is that for the most part, these hacks only do insipid programs that fit their narrow and obscure political agendas (get real - who besides borough hall cares about that 'Women in Queens Exhibit' or lauds that empty shell of what was once Bowne House gone some 20 years now, or thinks that ruin of the Worlds Fair scrap yard something to crow about.
The fact remains that anything charming, unique, and truly interesting (like the Steinway Mansion or Ft Totten, for example) are being ignored or bulldozed into oblivion or - instead of being a tourist spot - is an occasion for eye-rolling smirks in the real word.
Sure, lets leave Manhattan or Brooklyn to go out to Queens to stare at a landmarked Pepsi sign or the multimillion dollar Peter Vallone Sr Entertainment Venue in Astoria Park that seats about 150 under the rain with portable craphouses and dirty water franks for snacks and is miles from transportation. Chinese New Year in Flushing? South Asian Festivals Richmond Hill? An all nite rave in someones' back yard in Ozone Park? Hell yea!
You haven't seen New York unless you drive down Roosevelt Avenue at midnight!
The problem here is pure and simple: the promoters are working through city hall, not boroughh hall and money is not being given to 'the boys.'
You know darn well that the concert will happen regardless of community input.
Well, don't thousands of single people also enjoy the park? I still don't understand her " Queens is the Boro of Families " nonsense. I guess the other boroughs don't have families??? What stupidity! Can anyone figure out how she thinks ?
Katz wants no show that she doesn't sing at.
I guess she was not invited to sing?
but the Big Apple Circus is ok
This is pure crap!
Not to change the subject, sort of. What about the public sidewalks that are being abused by the thousands of food carts in the city. Our sidewalks are for walking not for food carts an every corner. They are disgusting,wrong and destroying our beutiful neighborhoods.
We are Queens--- The Boro of Food Carts. ....and we speak 746 different languages in case you didn't know. Oh, I left out that we are also the Boro of Families...
Don't you get it? FMCP is strictly for the use and expansion of the USTA!
Katz is shocked, shocked to learn that private, profit-making activities take over public parks.
Could we have some consistency in the outrage?
I suppose a for-profit concert could take place on the Citi Field parking lot. It seems sizable and open enough for such an event.
A smaller rave could also be staged inside the Tent of Tomorrow. Hipster concerts helped raise awareness towards the revival of McCarren Pool, and perhaps the same could happen with the NYS Pavilion.
BP Katz's statement appears welcome in contrast to her predecessors, whose plans for Flushing Meadows included a football arena (Marshall), expanding the tennis center (Shulman), and proposing the Grand Prix at Meadow Lake and high-rises at Willow Lake (Manes).
Looking back at the history of this park, we should be mindful that Flushing Meadows was designed to be a park, not a complex of sports and entertainment venues like the Meadowlands.
Pure crap....topped with whipped dung...topped with a Marachino dingle berry.!
What about the chaos caused by the U.S. Open, the lousy losing Mets, etc. they can't even win a series if it's handed to them.
Go Kansas City. That's where I'm headed for retirement.
If you've got to live on a culturally barren plains, it might as well be Kansas. Hello Dorothy, tin main, scarecrow, cowardly lion.
Queens is a laughing stock. I'm a Bronx boy forced to emigrate to this Gid forsaken borough by my parents at twelve years old.
F--k Wilpon and his Mets for giving people more to make fun of in Queens.
MLB sets the ticket prices for the post season.
I'm a Bronx boy forced to emigrate to this Gid forsaken borough by my parents at twelve years old.
Unless you came from Riverdale or the other few exceptions, it was probably an improvement in your life.
FMCP is the USTA's dumping ground and all the previous boro presidents allowed this to happen. Here's what needs to be done in this park. A) The reservoir needs to be drained and cleaned. B) The perimeter fences around the mini golf course needs to be replaced. C) Bathrooms need to be demolished and built from top to bottom. D) And last but not least, clean up meadow lake and all areas around it.
To the Deuschbag that said Queens was a dump, is the bronx any better.?? NOPE !!
Can Crappy or someone else please point me to some good articles about these proposed concerts?
Sergey, you, um, work for the city or something?
To the Bronx boy who thinks he'd be moving to Kansas, think again: the Royals are in KC MO (Missouri), not KC KS.
Say anything you want about the Wilpons but don't trash talk the Met players, it is one of the few things Queens has to be proud about. We don't need Yankee fans on the Queens Crap site.
Sergey works for nyc parks.
Nice try serg, way to be a weaselly gofer and huer for generation gentrification (those hipsters you mentioned). And way to expose the idiotic priorities of you and your fellow dreamers in the Parks Dept., since luxury events and outdoor raves are more important than the people that the Queens Steamer feigns concern over. Have you no sense of decency or have a modicum of dignity?
And way to expose your willful obliviousness by decrying the presence of sports arenas. What do you think Shitifield and that arthur albatross tennis arena are?
Why don't you and your party planning committee get some illuminated vests, work gloves, and a used rusty pick up and take care of what flushing meadows needs first as they were mentioned above in the last few posts (A,B, and C). And then take a look at Forest and Charles too.
And if you haven't noticed, or obviously refuse to, serious crimes has gone up primarily near and in parks, muggings and sexual assaults in particular, and that one disemboweled corpse in Kissena. How about shoring up enforcement where crime is most consistent.
The only reason Katzs is opposed to this is cause LiL Jimmy Dolan doesn't want ANY competition to his venues. Look up the proposed Jets stadium that he had Shelly kill.
When I lived in the Bronx, it was paradise compared to God forsaken Queens.....1941-1955 Ckason Point.
There ya go! And I rooted for the NY Giants, not the Yankees.
I hated moving to Archie Bunker land or The King of Queensville.
That is what Queens is known for. Low brows and dumkoffs.
Typo....make that Clason Point.
Waste if time. Cochella arts festival, Burning Man art festival and bands like KISS are sure they have this in the bag. Im told they want to sink some $$ into that derelict "fountain of the planets" circle with a rotating stage atop the old fountain pump house. This should be real interesting the circular layout is perfect for concerts and burning man. In 1964 this area was for this amazing changing color fountain show and loud fireworks at night. I honestly don't see much difference. I just don't like the idea of these corporate thugs paying peanuts (like the USTA)to take over all that public space with the locals getting NOTHING out of it.
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