Mets owner Steve Cohen solicited input from Queens residents Saturday on how best to develop the area around Citi Field – all while preparing to potentially roll the dice on bringing a casino to the property.
The billionaire hedge funder and his team met with more than 500 neighborhood residents at the ballpark and talked about how to turn the adjacent, long dormant Willets Point area into a year-round, all-weather entertainment destination.
Cohen said he’s “looking for great ideas” but openly added “a casino is definitely an option” — despite some in attendance expressing staunch opposition to gambling on the site.
“We don’t expect everyone to support all our ideas, but that’s what this discussion is about,” added Cohen, who’s seriously considering bidding for one of three downstate casino licenses up for grabs.
Cohen wasn't just being coy, there was a lot of chicanery afoot according to this eyewitness who contacted me and it sure looks like the omniscience of Transportation Alternatives was present at this:
Crappy,
I went to the Steve Cohen event yesterday. It wasn’t a “presentation” in the traditional sense. It was a walk along a line of easels set up with different elements of the property’s history and possible future uses. At each station, an employee solicited attendees’ thoughts on that station’s offering. There were a LOT of people working there. A sign on the front door advised visitors that by entering, they were consenting to being photographed. It was from a company called “Out of Lemons LLC.” (?)
The employees and the various easels scrupulously avoided any mention of a “casino.” In fact, they skillfully avoided presenting anything resembling Cohen’s own vision for the site. However, as with most push polls, they did suggest vague, generic uses for the site; usually in very innocuous terms: “more green space,” “walkability,” “enhanced access to the waterfront,” “live music,” “entertainment”… and so on. Things that are hard to argue against. Again, no mention of a casino.
At one station, they asked how we arrived that day at the ballpark. We were invited to provide answers by putting sticky dots on a board. That dot process was repeated at every station. Here, something wasn’t right. We were there at the front door before the event started. In fact, we wheedled our way inside the front door while waiting to be allowed upstairs. Almost everyone allowed in during the first wave were media or PR people (they wore badges, carried video equipment, and/or Cohen’s media desk seemed to know almost everyone coming in). When we were allowed up, we were among the first civilians to go in. Back to the sticky dots. There appeared to be a lot more answer-dots on the boards than there were visitors at that point. Dozens of people said they used mass transit to get there, almost no one used a car. But there were more dots than people. And the designated parking area had lots of cars in it. This looked suspicious. That was repeated at another station in which more people than possible said they wanted “walkability” (whatever that means). There were more examples of this, but these jumped out at me.
It appears to me that the use of broad suggested “uses” for the parking lot was their way of framing the discussion. That’s why I use the term push poll. The consultants running this can say that almost everyone wants the parking lot to change into something else. Of course. If you ask someone to choose among a dozen topics (“none of the above” not being an option), they’re going to pick one or more. That doesn’t mean there’s a grass roots movement demanding Steve Cohen be allowed to use parkland for commercial purposes. The common term for faux grassroots like this is “astroturfing.” I assume the next step is for “Queens Future” (a creature of lobbyists “New Green Willets”) to seek legislation allowing privatization of the parkland.
Here’s what wasn’t included at the stations, or in the choices:
• Any mention of a casino (but yes to bars, restaurants, music venue, and “entertainment”)
• Any reference to traffic or congestion (between the stadium, the new soccer stadium, the huge residential & commercial development in the Iron Triangle, and a casino, there’s going to be a huge increase in traffic on already overcrowded roads)
• Any mention of what’s going to happen to the parking lot – where are all the cars going to park? (I asked one of the employees… he guessed that there would be a parking structure of some kind. It would have to be enormous, and would be a nightmare trying to leave)
• Whether Steve Cohen should have any right to develop this parks department land. The courts have already ruled that the lot may be leased but the lessee can’t build on it.
• No option to leave well enough alone – it’s a parking lot, which is a necessity, and it does its job well.
• No access to any knowledgeable sources to ask any questions or express concerns. (Broadcast news says Cohen met with 500 people – I didn’t see him, and I heard his employees say they didn’t even know if he was in the building).
In short, this wasn’t as heavy handed as I feared it might be. But it was unmistakably manipulative. I don’t like being “played.”
{Unrelated
carping: I wish they’d stop calling the neighborhood “Willets Point.”
It’s not. Willets Point Blvd was a subway station name, based on an
unfinished road that ran from 126th St. & Roosevelt Ave to
(theoretically) Fort Totten (which is actually Willets Point). Ask
Kevin Walsh https://forgotten-ny.com/2020/
