THE CITY
Target
has Queens in its sights, with new stores planned for Astoria and
Elmhurst — but activists in both neighborhoods are waging separate
battles to boot the big-box retailer.
The
Targets are set to open by 2022 on bustling blocks steps away from
subway stations and near grocery stores, pharmacies, newsstands and
restaurants.
Opponents
fear the chain stores will erase union jobs and mom-and-pop shops, and
lead to potential displacement of longtime residents.
“These
corporations — Amazon, Target, Walmart, whoever — treat our
neighborhoods like corporate playgrounds, and think our people are just
open wallets,” said Patricia Chou, an organizer with Queens
Neighborhoods United, a grassroots group that is taking legal action to
stop the Elmhurst store.
“These
stores bring us closer to new and existing guests, and give us the
opportunity to meet the needs of new communities,” said DeBuse, touting
the smaller stores as an “easy and inspiring shopping experience.”
In
Astoria, Target’s arrival at busy 31st Street and Ditmars Boulevard
would push out five active businesses, while consuming other vacant
storefronts.
Neighborhood
resident and newsstand operator Kinnira Patel said her landlord
informed her it won’t renew the lease on her decade-old business come
August.
“They
said I could stay month-to-month. How can you stay month-to-month? I
have to pay two months ahead to keep the lights on,” said Patel, 54.
“Now I don’t know what I’m going to do next.”
On, these bodega Targets rely on automated cashiers.
17 comments:
It's simple, really simple, if you don't patronize Target they'll go away... Buy local, from your neighbors, fuck Target,Home Depot and the rest of 'em...
NIMBY politicians and residents are out of touch with reality.
These protesters have a point since existing jobs and businesses would be destroyed.
This city is almost dead.
I'd rather have a small Target with some real grocery than these crazy Chinese groceries or the dirty delis (i.e., PC term "Bodega"). There's a small Target in Port Washington and it's great, affordable, all self-checkout. I don't trust any of these people complaining.
Alas, a rodent like former Mayor Rudy Giuliani flat lined the pulse of New York's once vibrant nightlife, followed by a filthy and corrupt, monstrously self-serving parasite like Bloomberg, who murdered New York City, altogether. Ironically, after THAT public scourge destroyed Manhattan (and the outer boroughs), by opening up building congestion and over development to his scuzzy developer pals, then the sewer rat leaves his rat's nest and moves to London——into a land marked property, no less!——where NOTHING can be destroyed or modified!
Now, New York is just another ugly, generic, suburban strip mall for hollow, nihilistic transients and international money launderers (by way of Padukah, Kentucky AND Beijing). The entire city is now a money laundering Ponzi scheme (for overseas billionaires to park their dirty money in Park Avenue penthouses that nobody lives in for decades——with the government's blessing)!
Between those two, walking corpse politicians alone (and, their equally repulsive and intensely incompetent replacements, like terminal shithead, Bill de BLASS-hole and 'Gargoyle Andy' Cuomo), it won't be long until New York State is a complete graveyard for growth, development, art, history, education, commerce, egalitarianism, meritocracy, spirituality, contentment and sanity in THIS, the end of humanism itself.
What? WHAT?? THIS IS NEW???
❝The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.❞ —George Orwell
❝It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.❞ ―Upton Sinclair
❝We'll use the Democratic and Republican parties to keep the people busy. And with issues that have no consequence to us whatsoever.❞ —Banker's Magazine, 1892
❝Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.❞ ―Assata Shakur
❝This planet is obviously being used as an insane asylum by other planets.❞ ―George Bernard Shaw
❝Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it.❞ —John Lennon
Alas, slavery didn't END in 1865―—it EVOLVED! And, THIS time round: EVERYONE'S INVITED!
❝Always beware of the fact, that the only thing hindering an all out revolution is your fear of losing the scraps they throw at you.❞ —Gore Vidal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuMntvVwwWM
https://youtu.be/RlUltAPAZqk
It's the Ruling Class. Always the ruling class. The real government. Not the puppet charade of a government, nor their complicit corporations, monopolies, conglomerates.
TRUTH is TREASON――in an EMPIRE OF LIES!
The REVOLUTION will not be televised!
Key Foods on 31st is a dump .This place should go.
We need more gay saunas to keep the place from becoming too suburban .
Mom and Pop have been ripping you off for years
So Target is OK but not Walmart? There is no F’ing difference. So tired of the BS virtue signaling from our crappy electeds
Love it how Mystery 'Man' Gianrais is fighting for a few dozen people over a run down Key Food who will now have to get into their cars and travel a half dozen blocks to Best Food where the quality is much better.
Meanwhile we are about to get a hi rise dropped into the middle of our block. Anyone cares? Hell no! They are the donors for his ilk and protecting THEM is why he is desperately trying to change his stripes.
The good thing is he is about to be challenged for the first time.
He is about as 'progressive' as Crowley was. Wince every time we see him out there in his new guise. What a phony baloney. Even Aravella his now in hiding. They all know what is about to happen to them.
They are about to be pushed out by people brought into their communities in new buildings put up by their campaign donors. Doncha love it?
Did the Chinese and Koreans care who they ran out of business when they crowded into Queens. Hell No! So what's the problem with good ol' American Target moving in. Better prices, more selection, cleaner operation. Oh, that's why!
I live in Forest Hills and think the Target Express format that they shoved on Austin St. really sucks. I never was a Target shopper to begin with but I get their appeal if you live in the suburbs and like big box generic retail. But the small size Target's are worthless. I looked for certain products on their website and pretty much anything I looked for was available at their regular stores and none of it was available at the express store. It's basically a Rite Aid that also sells SOME groceries and cheap clothes you wouldn't be caught dead in.
Who is holding a gun to anyone's head to shop anywhere? I thought so.
"London a land marked property, no less!——where NOTHING can be destroyed or modified"
Huh, What?
When was the last time you were in London? Its now worse then here!
Londons current mayor is this Sadiq Khan a social democrat Islamic.
He's erasing London.
All new glass towers and mosques going up, churches going down. A taxi's cost $15 a mile, $35 for a f_cking lousy weird tasting hamburger, chips and a pint of tap. And for the cherry on the cake speakers on building blasting the Islamic calls to prayer LOUD from 5:30 in the morning all day long. Women cant wear short skirts, airy clothing to work during summer or they risk being assaulted and spit on. --the cops do nothing!!
The London of 2019 is a SHITHOLE!
The Target in Port Washington and it's great, affordable?
Only affordable when compared to prices on Miracle Mile in Manhasset perhaps.
$18 for the same 6 sets of the exact same sox (less the fancy packaging) I buy on Main street flushing for $6.99, include a Rolex watch for $30.
Target run locals out of business then changes over to only stock over priced items, Raindew in Manhasset is jacking prices through the roof to now.
Can you believe $7 +tax for a lousy plane bare cannoli @ Umburtos pizza?
And the dope Manhasset housewives put it on the credit cards as the husbands slave to pay for it all. --what a bunch of suckers!
When you quote Joanne Chesimard,a convicted,murderer,you lose credibility.
You see Joe, my relatives left London in 1670. Now you know why and so do I. As far as I know no one in the family has ever gone back. It was crap then and it's crap now. All we can do is hope that NYC will stop following it's example.
You should all want as many competitors as possible: 95% of them small, 5% large. Austin street's Express-Target DOES suck - it should've stayed a bookstore, which was much classier and much more enjoyed by FH's denizens. Elmhurst doesn't NEED a Target...it already HAS a HUGE one. Hence how community opposition got the proposed redundant one brought down from 13 storeys to just two. You should NEVER want a scenario where your ONLY option for fresh produce is a BIG BOX retailer OR a run-down corner bodega that has no business trying to sell "fresh" produce. What is it so hard for some commentators to understand what HEALTHY competition means? NO COMPETITION = NO AFFORDABILITY.
Key Foods, C-Towns, etc and the like are run according to the individual whims of their owners - some are crap, some are decent, rarely are any *great*. The only thing standardized is the logo on their signage outside!
As much as I like patronizing the Queens Place Target for some things, I would hate to rely on them solely for any kind of fresh food - their prices are TERRIBLE.
News Flash to the ^anon whinging about Asians pushing people out in Flushing - if nobody SOLD, nobody would've moved in! That's the general principle with demographic change in every neighborhood, in every city, since the beginning of time.
Um I live a couple of blocks away from the proposed Target site. The “options” there for fresh produce are a joke. Dirty, disgusting, and constantly crowding the sidewalks with their displays and empty boxes. While I would really like a Whole Foods 365 I will take Target over that garbage. Why tf does QNU even hve standing to challenge this? Who the f are they? Seems like just a front for greedy store owners who want to force local residents to buy cheap dirty garbage. They sure don’t represent me or anyone else I know in the area.
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