Though Anthony Weiner is no longer advocating to place a naked man in the “free stuff” section of Craiglist, the city has plotted its own scheme for relocating the unclothed, kind of sexist statue. Read More
First, they came for Rockaway Beach. Read More
Talk about a home run.
After two years of negotiations with some of New York’s biggest developers, the city has scored a victory at Willets Point at once smaller and bigger than previously pitched. Today, Mayor Michael Bloomberg released the line-up for a 52-acre Willets Point development boxing in Citi Field, which will be built by a development double play by the Related Companies and Sterling Equities, run by the owners of the Mets.
The project will not encompass the entire 61-acre Iron Triangle. Nor will it follow the outlines of a plan for phased development at Willets Point released in 2010. But rather than being a smaller project, a glorified mall as early leaks of the agreement had suggested, the new plan far exceeds what the Bloomberg administration had once called for on the site two years ago—and not simply because the Wilpons will now build a million-square-foot “entertainment complex” (don’t call it a mall!) on the west side of their stadium. The bigger play is what is planned on the east side of the stadium.
“At Willets Point, where others have seen challenges, we have always seen enormous opportunities,” Mayor Bloomberg said at a breakfast hosted by the Queens Chamber of Commerce. “Today the valley of ashes is well on its way to becoming the site of historic private investment, major job creation and unprecedented environmental remediation.” Read More
JFK will now have two missing terminals.
As The Observer and others have been lamenting for some time now, the day has passed for Jet Age JFK. Terminal 3 is being demolished to make way for more airplane parking to accommodate Delta’s expansion of Terminal 4. And now we learn that the same fate has befallen the Sundrome, which was unceremoniously destroyed last year, with no immediate plans for replacement. This leaves only the still-shuttered Terminal 5 as the last remnant of midcentury JFK.
And yet while a piece of architectural history may be gone, it could mean smoother flying for those in and out of JFK, which is really what the airport is all about. Read More
Rockaway Beach: A well-established Hipster Hamptons of sorts for the last few years, a place many thought would hit fever-pitch sometime this summer, the moment when—like Williamsburg and Bushwick and Red Hook and hell, the rest of the entire borough of Brooklyn before it—well-heeled Manhattanites discover it, and then, ruin the fun for those who were ostensibly there “first.”*
First came The Taco Stand.
Then, The Hoteliers.
And now: The Page Six Item. Read More
Yesterday, The Journal (rightly) complained the lack of progress at two major affordable housing projects, Hudson Yards and Willets Point. This got The Observer wondering about another, though: whatever happened to Hunters Point South, which was approved the same day almost four years ago as the Willets Point project.
Things are moving along quite nicely, it turns out.
It may seem as though there has been limited tangible progress since Related Companies was tapped to develop the project in February of last year, but that is because most of the work is being done below the surface—with on the banks of the East River and the banks of housing finance. Read More
A reader sends along this thoughtful critique of the problems inherent in the latest plans for Willets Point:
What a horrible idea. A parking lot and a mall? That neighborhood is a mess already, though. Just a few hundred feet from the bay in one direction and Flushing Meadows in the other, and they’re both nearly impossible to access. It should be a wonderful spot to hang out before a ballgame, and instead it’s just a tangle of highways. Thank you, Robert Moses.
It’s a very interesting point, and perhaps points to a better way forward for this forlorn corner of the city. Read More
Willets Point has long been one of the most neglected corners of the city, famously appearing in The Great Gatsby as “the valley of ashes.” The Bloomberg administration has been working for years to redevelop the 62-acre Iron Triangle, long home to auto body shops and a handful of heavy industries nestled between the Mets stadia and downtown Flushing.
Today, City Hall took a step toward spiffing up the site, if not quite in the direction it had hoped.
The administration withdrew its eminent domain case, known as a determination of findings, from state appellate court, halting takeover proceedings against a handful of holdout property owners in the area. This paves the way for the project to move forward, albeit in an altered form from the 2008 rezoning, which called for a mixed-use development on the site.
According to people familiar with the situation, the city is close to reaching a deal with the Related Companies and Sterling Equities to build a mall on the site. The exact details are still being worked out, and an official announcement is expected in the coming weeks. Read More
It’s Queens’ time to shine!
Long Island City was once a barren post-industrial wasteland, but recent efforts are shifting the borough into a plausible location to live. Jet Blue flew its headquarters over two years ago and Queens Plaza is booming with real estate, but is it really New York if you aren’t living next to some college students? Read More
It can be hard to know where all the bodies are buried in New York (Washington Square Park, Bryant Park and Madison Square Park are just a few of the city’s re-purposed resting places).
Potter’s fields rarely fare well over time (regardless of the surrounding real estate’s desirability), but many of the city’s historic cemeteries have been well-loved—watched over by attentive congregations, descendants and preservationists (see: the Trinity Church graveyard in lower Manhattan).
Unfortunately, even the most attentive caretakers cannot always protect the dead from development, or an errant backhoe. Read More
Affordable Housing or Lack Thereof
