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THE WEEK OF JULY 17, 2003
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Now it’s the gas tanks site
Dear Editor:
First the Catalpa YMCA, now the Elmhurst gas tanks site. What will City Council Member Dennis Gallagher decide to spend our money on next?
The plan is to purchase the site, estimated to be worth $12 million, from KeySpan and to turn it into a public park. Why? Well, it’s simple. He and Council Member Melinda Katz decided for every New Yorker that, “we’re being over-saturated with development now. I don’t like multiple dwellings or massive retail.” In other words, why let the market (i.e. the people and their free choices to reward a new development with their money or not) decided what they would like when she can just use the power of government to outbid any private developer and build what she likes?
The reason there is massive retail and multiple dwellings is—gasp!—because that’s what people are buying, which means that’s what people want. So when Katz advocates parks as opposed to massive retail and dwellings for our own good, what is she really advocating?
The truth is, you don’t need government to build parks anymore than you need government to be in charge of shoes. Though, Katz’s silly logic would have us believe that we’re over-saturated with those too. In fact, two of the most successful parks in the US are private: Bryant Park in Manhattan and Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. These parks are managed by private companies and have full-time sanitation and private security.
When the government ran Bryant Park in the 1980s, the most frequent visitors were cops to the scene of a new murder. Today, the majestic Bryant Park is an urban oasis that operates at six times the budget it had under city management, making money because vendors like Starbucks or Ben & Jerry’s set up booths, tables and chairs outside and pay rent. Frequently, the park hosts free Broadway shows for the public, paid for by advertisers. The gorgeous Rittenhouse Square in Center City Philadelphia is maintained with portions of the rent collected from all of the luxurious buildings surrounding it—a small amount compared to how much the park has boosted the property value of these dwellings.
If Katz and Gallagher were so confident that developing a park is right, they should be able to convince people of it and wouldn’t need to force us to fund it with our taxes since we would do it of our own accord. In fact, the only reason you could possibly have for forcing people to do something is because you don’t think you could convince them to do it.
In the end, Katz and Gallagher are looking for projects whose sponsorship will net them the most votes. But with arguments like “I don’t like multiple dwellings or massive retail” to justify expenditure of my hard-earned money and by not using preexisting solutions like privately managed parks that save taxpayers tons of money a year, they won’t be getting mine.
Leonardo F. Urbano
Ridgewood
Now it’s Blvd. of Memorials
Dear Editor:
A gathering of mourners along Queens Boulevard is once again visible. Flowers appear on lampposts, and mourning candles flicker in the darkness of the night.
Families and friends gather in disbelief and shock at the suddenness of death for their young adult children and friends. They think of what could have been, of lives that had great promise and eagerness to capture the future and enjoy it.
A Memorial of Remembrance to the Dead of Queens Boulevard stands proudly at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Church in Forest Hills. Flowers still stand at 67th Avenue, where 14-year-old Sophia Leviyev died. Now flowers are at 78th Avenue.
Queens Boulevard, the “Boulevard of Death,” has now become the “Boulevard of Memorials.”
What do we do? We, the elders of the community and the leaders of the Forest Hills Action League, feel a great sorrow and despair. Once again, the cry of “What is a life worth?” echoes through the canyons of Queens Boulevard. There is talk of a monster march to wake up the elected officials to action.
Eighty-four people have died in recent years. There are thousands of injured people who have had accidents on Queens Boulevard. No one seems to have the exact statistics of the injured.
The time has come! Law enforcement must become a presence on the boulevard. The time is now for action, not indifference and excuses! Rebuild the Killer Highway!
Queens Boulevard must be re-engineered now to protect the people of this county. We ask once again from our elected officials: What is a life worth? We demand that the carnage of innocent lives on this highway in our midst must stop now.
Pleadings by the Department of Transportation at community meetings and by the elected officials who should be representing us that “there is no money” to re-engineer Queens Boulevard, the “Boulevard of Death,” must stop.
Find the money to save the people of Queens County!
Norbert and Estelle Chwat
Co-Presidents
Forest Hills Action League