The plaza above the Jamaica Avenue-Van Wyck E-subway station at the edge of Kew Gardens has been in a state of disarray for over a decade, according to Roxanne Simone Lord Marcelle, the executive director and founder of the Southeast Queens Chamber of Commerce, who wants to raise $100,000 and revitalize the space as a thank-you to first responders a stone’s throw away at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center.
For years the park-like area has become a haven for the homeless and people using drugs, according to Lord Marcelle, who had to pass it when going to the juice bar she owns when it was located in Kew Gardens. It also suffers from a lack of lighting.
“There are too much disparities and some places end up distressed,” Lord Marcelle told the Queens Chronicle by telephone on April 15. “We need awareness and funding, but awareness first.”
For years Lord Marcelle says she has been concerned for the students, medical staff, families and business owners that have to cut through the park to get to the station, but she had difficulty figuring out which agency manages the park.
“We want to do more,” said Lord Marcelle. “This is such a big area at Van Wyck and Jamaica ... This isn’t about money, money, money. We want to revitalize the area and help it look better.”
She plans to hold a press conference later this month to draw more attention to the issue.
After the Queens Chronicle shared Lord Marcelle’s concerns with the MTA, the agency referred the paper to the city Parks Department, the Department of Sanitation and the NYPD about the issue.
The NYPD did not comment on the concerns, but after sending people to Kew Gardens, the Parks Department said it believes the MTA owns the 3 feet surrounding the escalator at the station entrance and the stairs below. Days later the agency said the remainder of the property might belong to the city Department of Transportation.
Lord Marcelle also reached out to Borough President Donovan Richard’s Office and after days of research of property records a representative confirmed the property has belonged to the DOT since 1993.
11 comments:
Dept. of Transportation does a poor job filling in potholes, repaving NYC streets, fixing broken traffic signals and doing other jobs our tax dollars pay for.
Do you really expect them to fix the Van Wyck Plaza since they have been denying it's their responsibility to fix and maintain it for so many years?
Ignore it and people will stop complaining about.
That has been NYC's motto for decades.
Who needs parks anyway. They're only for tree-hugging liberals and crack heads. Built an apartment complex over the lot.
Thats how you create jobs and keep the economy running.
Build baby build!
Looks real classy with that construction fence prepping more for more NYC housing. From its location it should attract some great tennants.
The fun has not started yet, folks.
Shut up prole. Don’t you know the Ukraine needs money
What a bastion of hypocracy! Kew Gardens Plaza forcefully had its gifted statue, Triumph of Civic Virtue, robbed on December 15, 2012 (completely orchestrated in secrecy on taxpayer funded money by an ignorant West Indian Borough President/empowered idiot named Helen Marshall), and then the next self-appointed, Nazi public art censor, Melinda Katz, spent over a staggering one million, ostensibly to beautify the plaza that now looks even worse before the statue itself was erased from history.
❝Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, footbal, beer, and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult. All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations. And then they become discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontentment led nowhere, because being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances.❞ ——George Orwell, '1984'
I am really surprised they have not built a protected drug injection site there yet since so many drug addicts, homeless people hang out there.
Isn't that NYC's latest craze now? Give the lowlife thugs what they want now?
I have a idea said...
Why don't the people who live near the Van Wyck Plaza clean it themselves ?
Why don't the people who live near the Van Wyck Plaza clean it themselves ?
Or you can do it as well. Go for it.
Freeloading commie who you are.
@“ I have a idea said...”
I have a better idea. Why don’t you go and clean it up!
C'mon Man said...
@“ I have a idea said...”
I have a better idea Let's leave this shithole in the rearview mirror.
@“ Shut up prole. Don’t you know the Ukraine needs money”
Take a hike, TA commie!
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