“The 50 acres should remain publicly-owned parkland and if I were a billionaire, I would make a nice big donation to the NYC Parks Department so they can make a nice park” – Cody Hermann
There’s no news about Correa, but you need to pay attention to this story.
Steve Cohen held his “vision session” yesterday, ostensibly to see how the community would like to use the parkland that is the area that is presently parking….and one idea is for it to be a casino.
QNS.com reports “…However, Cohen’s plans have received pushback from northeast and central Queens civic leaders who said he made no mention of a casino and instead referred to an “entertainment” venue on “50 acres of vacant asphalt.” The civics also noted that a casino will create quality-of-life issues, traffic congestion, and an increase in problem gambling. “
Some of the ideas suggested by the attendees – and stay with me here as I pick this apart – were “public art displayed by local artists, concerts, a safer bike route connection, a shopping mall and more green space. ”
OK – so this is exactly what I thought this would be. If you look at the article on QNS.com you will see that people were able to stick yellow post it notes on a board – that allows Steve’s group to “consider” ideas.
Let’s look at those ideas…
“public art displayed by local artists” – what does that mean? We’re going to close the Citi parking lot so we can have some outdoor art displays??? That’s not happening folks.
“concerts” – meaning what? We close the parking lot and some local band plays for 100 people? If you mean Big Concerts there’s a baseball stadium right there, and a soon-to-be soccer stadium on the non-parkland across the street where you can have those.
“A shopping mall” – were the Wilpons there? Might as well let the guy have his casino then. Does this person live in America where there are tons of dead and dying shopping malls?
“More green space” – well yeah, this. If Steve is serious about wanting to improve the area and get rid of the asphalt, then move the lot underground and create something akin to Boston Common which is a wonderful public park with underground parking. Go for this option, it sounds great.
Then there were the people who wasted time. One twitter user, their username suggesting they are some sort of Jets Media, asked Steve if the Jets, who co-built their own stadium in NJ would be moving to Queens. That question is several levels of stupid. Others asked about Correa, on which there was no update. (Personally I thought the deal would get done on Friday night so Steve could take a victory lap yesterday).
How about this one: “I’m really looking forward to a vibrant area for entertainment, dining, dancing and a year-round use of the space,” said DJ Shug, a die-hard Mets fan
Why do we need to have dining in the park? Open a restaurant across the street then. And “dancing” – I’d like to hear more specifics on that plan? Are we replacing the parking lot with Studio 54? Should we go dance after the Tuesday night Mets-Marlins game?
QNS.com reports “Uncle Steve” (your cool relative who gives good Christmas presents or something) will be holding more hearings.
Great job QNS.com staying on the case here.
For many of you I ask – why are you OK handing over the park to a billionaire? So you can dance after Mets games? Really think about what you’re doing here.
