Workers have broken ground on a community space and parking garage near Queens Borough Hall — the first major step in the construction of a borough-based jail in Kew Gardens, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Friday.
The new facility, which will be 105 feet tall, will include a 25,000-square-foot multi-purpose community space and more than 600 public parking spots.
The facility is being built adjacent to the future site of a 195-foot-tall jail — where the decommissioned Queens Detention Complex at 182-02 82nd Ave. is located. The detention facility will be demolished while the garage is being built.
The garage/ community space building will be erected on the west side of an existing parking lot at Union Turnpike between 126th Street and 132nd Street. The future 886-bed jail will eventually span both the site of the former Queens Detention Complex and the east side of the parking lot.
However, the east side of the lot, with 140 parking spots, will remain open for public usage during construction of the parking garage — which is expected to be completed in early 2023.
The facility is being built ahead of the new jail — which earlier proposals slated design and construction to begin in 2023.
The future jail is part of the city’s larger $8.3 billion plan to close the jails on Rikers Island by 2026 and replace them with four smaller jails in every borough but Staten Island.
“Today we move one huge step closer to our goal of a fairer and more equitable jail system for all New Yorkers,” de Blasio said in a statement. “Closing Rikers Island will make our city stronger and more just, and I’m proud to deliver a system that better reflects this city’s values.”
17 comments:
I hope the next mayor is smart enough to stop this crap. But im not sure if it's too late or not.
Thanks Karen Kosolwitz!! A jail, homeless shelter hotel, decaying LIRR bridges, and miles of useless bike lanes. Quite the legacy. Term limits couldn't have come soon enough for you.
Kosolwitz had the help of the Sheeple no ?
If there is a borough that merits a jail, or to be hemmed in entirely with chicken wire, it is Staten Island.
This is a snippet from the Design Principles and Guidelines for the custody areas in the Queens facility:
"Design housing units to be calming and restful and to reduce situational stress and anxiety creating a sense of privacy and retreat while maintaining the requisite visual connection by the supervising officer where necessary. New arrival units, young adults, and therapeutic units especially should evoke a safe, restorative, and healing environment."
Going to jail will be more pleasant than living in an apartment in the surrounding neighborhoods of Kew Gardens and Briarwood, and perhaps a step-down from a stay at the Ritz-Carlton.
"Community space"??? Who the hell in their right mind wants to hang out at a prison???
Nobody wants this, and the election results prove that. Is there any way to stop this now, instead of when the next mayor takes office? Otherwise it's just a huge waste of money.
I hope the next mayor is smart enough to stop this crap. But im not sure if it's too late or not.
Classic Queens. I can't begin to start to critique a statement like this.
"Thanks Karen Kosolwitz!!" "Miles of Useless bike lanes." "Term limits couldn't have come soon enough for you."
Well Said!!
Small business owners all along Queens Blvd should SUE the city and Dumblasio for those useless bike lanes!!! They take away from parking for their deliveries and customers wanting to visit their establishments. No customers means NO BUSINESS!!!
Bike Lanes cause more traffic congestion, more pollution, and more time wasted sitting in traffic. Especially when using public transportation.
Politicians and Bike Lanes are USELESS, POINTLESS, and a WASTE of Space.
Get RID of THEM!!!
No one wants the new jails. Just keep Rikers open and fix it.
And the bikes lanes, almost no one uses them. They said build it and people will use it. Well, they aren't. I see a few spandex guys every day, but otherwise the bike lanes are empty most of the day and most of the year. Even spring and fall, when the weather is perfect, it's not many people. And we have several years of real world data from the Queens Boulevard lane in Rego Park, Elmhurst, and Woodside. On the rare occasion you see a bike, they're often on the sidewalk.
Return the parking, open a traffic lane, do a bus lane, create a wide park like median, or almost anything local people will use. The bike lanes are an amenity for a very small but very vocal group of gentrification progressive transplants. Few of whom live in central Queens.
What the hell do you expect? If an ignorant West Indian parasite like former QUEENS Borough President Helen Marshall could OPENLY (and SLOPPILY) rob Kew Gardens Plaza of its gifted, 'Triumph of Civic Virtue' statuary, with impunity (not to mention a total disregard for due process, much Community Board 9 public objections and visibility), followed by flatbedding a mega ton work of precious Italian marble that secretly cost taxpayers $200,000 to displace a statue that the majority of QUEENS residents did not want removed in the first place (as well as ALL civic virtue) away to be banished to a Brooklyn graveyard, then there really shouldn't be any expectations of altruism and virtue of ANY kind, possums, ironically from a tonsured borough like QUEENS County that has repeatedly, and SO COMPLETELY betrayed ALL PRETENSE of public trust, ethics, integrity, ACCOUNTABILITY and transparency——that the entire cabal of government hacking henchmen now DEVALUES honesty itself——to pathologically traitorous and tyrannical effect!——and, the public be damned (again and STILL)!
What? THIS IS NEW???
FOOTNOTE: The late Mary Ann Carey (of Community Board 9) and I have fought tirelessly to stop two self-appointed public art sensors like Marshall (and, later on Melinda Alley Katz in 2014, and even a third puppet-stooge in Claire Schulman——the disgraced Donald Manes' prehistoric experiment-bitch on ugly wheels!) and Marshall's militant, minority gestapos of Femi-Nazi trained, unresponsive tyrants from usurping democracy, but alas, the empowered idiots of government monarchy rule have spoken——and, their open tyrancy was deployed to silence the public majority referendum to SO ORDER this borough of cemetaries into an ACTUAL 'Night of the Living Dead' graveyard of zombie-like waste, exploitation and overdevelopment. So, DUE enjoy that distinct tint of 'Tidy Bowl' Blue, whenever you flush, you entrenched and establishment-rigged DemonRat scourges of epic government fail!
I don't understand how building new smaller prisons will fix all NYC's prison problems. How will they make sure they won't start falling apart and become 4 mini-Rikers? Won't the Rikers guards be the guards here? Build a museum or something in that building to help the local economy and also put money into education, job training, and stuff that will actually help people. Also, why are all the female prisoners being put in Queens. I thought the point of these prisons was to be closer to prisoners' families. What if a woman from Staten Island or Brooklyn gets locked up? How will this help her be closer to her family? This is a half baked plan.
Ok why are we building this when people get arrested and let go soon after? Smaller jails for who? For what? When ppl commit a murder the next thing we hear is mental health issues non compliant with meds etc.
So anyway who is left at Rikers anyway? What will become of Rikers when it closes? Some hipster joint with lovely waterfront views?
Elmhurst is already ruined now the lovely Kew Gardens.
Will there be any reform programs, educational programs, and programs to teach these prisoners to stop committing the crimes that put them in there in the first place?
I don't think so.
Most of the prisoners who are released from Riker's usually wind up being arrested again because they cannot stop their bad behavior and do not want to get better and work and earn a living wage on their own.
They are the ones who are dealing and selling the illegal drugs that are plaguing our neighborhoods, they are the ones who are selling and causing a majority of the shootings from illegal guns, and the ones who commit violent crimes against women and children and everyday citizens.
Not only are they purposely keeping these violent offenders out of prison, they are putting many of these violent sex offenders, convicted felons in homeless shelters here in Queens. Many residents of Queens DO NOT want them in their neighborhood. But our local politicians could care less. They are not subjected to the daily harassment these men cause everyday.
How many of you have been spit upon, cursed at, followed to your home, physically threatened, had your packages stolen from the front of your house, and have been sexually harassed?
None of that matters to the local officials who are suppose to serve the people who put them in office. They only care about building new, expensive, smaller prisons and keeping violent, repetitive criminals with mental health problems out on the streets to cause more problems and ignore the complaints against them.
NYC is being RUN by Criminals and ONLY PROTECTS the Rights of Criminals.
Everyone else BE DAMNED!!!
Another reason to vote for Curtis Sliwa. The Dems are the problem
Useless Dems like Cuomo, Deblasio, McCray, Comrie, Carl Heastie, Andrea Stewart Cousins, Charles Schumer, Jumanne Williams, Eric Adams are the real problem.
They have been in power for far TOO long. Look how well NYC has turned out.
Another reason to stand up and VOTE THEM OUT OF OFFICE!!!
I’m sure the first inmates will be the Trump crime family.
To last Anonymous who said: ❝I'm sure the first inmates will be the Trump crime family.❞
I seriously doubt that a man who served one Republican term (before the DNC Cyberninjas rigged his second term in favor of walking corpse, Joe BIDET, overnight——and under the cover of a few hours of darkness, no less, that magically rescinded President TRUMP'S sizable lead while instantly switching all staunch, die hard RED states completely over to 'Tidy Bowl' Blue states) will be jailed (much less indicted and prosecuted) versus 150 years of corrupt, entrenched, corporate obedient and establishment-rigged, monstrously failed DemonRat leadership of the DNC (Does Not Care - about democracy), ALL of which completely destroyed, raped, ravaged, tonsured and obliterated New York City, New York State, flag and country with a vengeful impunity that remains unprecedented to date.
To even suggest that Trump would be greenlighted to court review, ironically over the centuries of egregious, outrageous and unconscionable transgressions that have been openly——and SLOPPILY!——perpetrated by the 'OTHER' right of center Republican Party (wearing the DemonRat label), is even more absurd and unconceivable than a cheap, arrogant, racist, egomaniacal, vainglorious hustler named Eric Adams taking the mayoralty (so that he can continue to WILLFULLY ignore ALL people of color with impunity, as well as the REST of his tone deaf and vacuous administration of extreme cognitive dissonance and sociopathy).
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