NY1 VIDEO: Working with Congressman Crowley and City Council Member Dromm, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is considering reopening a shuttered Long Island Rail Road station in Elmhurst, and is seeking residents’ feedback before making a decision via Elmhurst Travel Surveys.
See more at: http://queens.ny1.com/content/top_stories/184305/mta-considers-reopening-elmhurst-lirr-station–seeks-residents–input/#sthash.Mq0IKyT8.dpuf
NY1 VIDEO: Two local City Council members, Julissa Ferreras and Daniel Dromm, are calling on Trade Fair Supermarkets in Queens to bring locked out union members back to work.
From NY1: By Agnes Chung
After being in an uproar over their new pedestrian plaza, Jackson Heights merchants are now working to create events in the plaza.
From Streetsblog: By Stephen Miller
A group of business owners who decried the 37th Road pedestrian plaza in Jackson Heights after it opened have come around and launched a group to act as stewards of the new public space. This turn of events comes after persistent work by Council Member Danny Dromm’s office and local merchants, who are now working together to ensure the plaza is a long-term success. The plaza’s undeniable popularity as a gathering place also hasn’t hurt.
A few months ago, Internet Café owner Agha Saleh and Bombay Chat café owner Shazia Kausar were two of the business owners unhappy with the new plaza. Saleh was quoted in the New York Times saying that it had contributed to crime in the neighborhood, while Kausar told the Times Ledger that soon after the plaza opened in October 2011, her business had dropped and she was having trouble paying employees.
Citing a “gap of communication” between business owners, DOT, and plaza supporters when the project was implemented, Saleh credited months of work by Dromm’s office and DOT to address the business owners’ concerns. “We’re really proud that we brought people on board,” Saleh said.
Now, Saleh and Kausar are working with adjacent business owners to create a new group called Sukhi NY, which will manage what is being called Diversity Plaza. “Sukhi” is an acronym for Social Uplift Knowledge and Hope Initiatives; it also translates from Urdu, Hindi and other languages as “prosperity and happiness.” Council Member Dromm, whose office had until now been coordinating plaza upkeep, joined Saleh and Kausar at an event on the plaza last Friday to announce the formation of Sukhi NY, which is still in its formative stages. Official approval by DOT as a plaza partner is expected to come in September. In the meantime, the organization is kicking off its stewardship of the plaza by hosting a festival that ends today, marking the end of Muslim holy month Ramadan.
“This plaza can benefit the stakeholders who depend on this place for their livelihood,” Saleh said.
Saleh and Kausar aren’t the only former plaza opponents to welcome this latest development.
Mohammed Pier, president of the Jackson Heights Bangladeshi Business Association, had been a plaza skeptic. “Our customers come to do shopping, not to sit,” he told Streetsblog in February. Now, he’s welcoming the debut of Sukhi NY. “This is a great day,” he told the Times Ledger. “After months of misunderstanding, we have restored our differences.”
In January, Shiv Dass, president of the Jackson Heights Merchants Association, felt the plaza was hurting businesses. “We made this place a prime area, but now they’re trying to kill us,” he said. “The bottom line is they have to move this plaza.” On Friday, he joined Mohammed Pier at the plaza for the Sukhi NY announcement.
Saleh had some harsh words for some of the reporters who wrote about the plaza. “A lot of press people came in and they took our interviews and they took our quotes and changed our positions,” he said.
After months of the plaza filling with potential customers every day, business owners who once opposed the plaza now see it as an opportunity for growth and are taking a hand in its upkeep. Will reporters stoppretending that it’s a failure?
“I have looked forward to this day coming for a very long time,” Dromm said.
Business owners Agha Saleh and Shazia Kausar instituted the new group, Sukhi NY. The organization, the name of which means “prosperity and happiness” in Hindi, aims to both work with the city Department of Transportation to improve the quality of life in the plaza and hold events there to bring the diverse populations of Jackson Heights together.
“This is the best solution,” said Kausar, who is president of the organization and owns the café Bombay Chat. “We will make this plaza beautiful and more people will come.”
Following the findings of a transportation study for Jackson Heights and with the approval of Community Board 3, the city DOT installed a plaza on 37th Road between 73rd and 74th streets in October. After 37th Road was closed, many business owners said they experienced large drops in their sales and witnessed an increase in vagrancy. They raised their problems at multiple meetings with the DOT and members of CB 3.
As the weather became warmer, however, more shoppers and residents began to use the plaza. Sukhi hopes to keep the momentum going by using the plaza as a place to hold events.
From Thursday, Aug. 16, to Monday, Aug. 20, Sukhi will hold a Chaand Raat Festival/Eid Baazar to celebrate the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
“You will see this street further transformed into a beautiful area in honor of those holidays,” Dromm said.
Both Shiv Dass, president of the Jackson Heights Merchants Association, and Mohammad Peer, of the Bangladeshi Merchants Association, said they were glad a compromise had been reached.
“This is a great day,” Peer said. “After months of misunderstanding, we have restored our differences.”
Dromm said he believed a solution was able to be reached because throughout the debate the lines of communication were kept open between those who opposed the plaza and those who were for it. He encouraged all residents, even non-Muslims, to take part in the Eid celebration and enjoy the diverse community.
“We are all in this together, and as Agha said, we are all Americans,” Dromm said. “This is our neighborhood. These are all our shops.”
From Times Ledger: By Rebecca Henely
City Councilman Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights) said sanitation and ensuring the success of burgeoning immigrant populations were his priorities when he doled out the $550,000 he received in discretionary funding this year.
“I’ve made a concerted effort to make sure the way I distributed funds represents the diversity of the community I represent,” Dromm said.
The councilman’s district includes parts of Jackson Heights, Corona and Elmhurst.
Dromm’s $550,000 in discretionary funds from this year’s city budget was a significant boost from the roughly $250,000 he received last year. Dromm broke up this funding between groups serving a multitude of ethnicities, both in the neighborhood and on a statewide level.
The largest single item Dromm allocated from his own funds was $60,000 to the Doe Fund. The fund, which employs homeless and formerly incarcerated young people to clean up city streets, will be cleaning the 37th Road Plaza and surrounding areas seven days a week and other areas throughout the neighborhood five days a week, Dromm said.
“That’s a very serious commitment on my part to stressing the success of the businesses in that area,” Dromm said.
The group that received the most money, split up among multiple grants, was the Queens Community House. The organization, based in Forest Hills but with locations in Elmhurst and Jackson Heights, got a collective $78,000 to fund a multitude of services from youth workshops to graffiti cleanup to housing help.
Dromm also gave Jackson Heights-based immigrant advocacy group Make the Road New York $31,000 for efforts to help stop deportations of incorrectly detained immigrants and to fight homophobia and transphobia.
Another of Dromm’s major recipients was the LeFrak City Youth and Adult Activities Association, which got almost $30,000 for academic help and sports activities for young people. Dromm also gave $20,000 to the Queens Lesbian and Gay Pride Committee Inc. to fund the Queens Pride Parade in Jackson Heights, which Dromm helped start.
But Dromm also gave many smaller funds to groups that advocate for a specific minority population. He said he gave grants to groups like Asian Americans for Equality, whose closest location is in Flushing, to assist the growing Asian population in Elmhurst.
The councilman said he is also trying to identify groups that are serving the new populations in his district, like the relatively new Tibetan and Nepalese communities in Jackson Heights.
“They have the cultural competence to do the outreach,” he said of the advocacy organizations.
Dromm said he was fairly proud of the city’s budget overall this year and pointed out that it provided services to immigrants like legal help and English classes, as well as offering services that would make it easier for women to work while raising a family.
From NY1: By Ruschell Boone
The Jackson Heights shopping strip is looking a lot prettier these days with news trees, benches and cleaner streets. It’s a far cry from what the 82nd Street business improvement district or BID used to look like. Now it’s got a new look, new leadership and a new name. It’s now called the 82nd Street partnership and business owners appear to like it.
Retail businesses are members of the BID and many of the store owners had complained to local leaders that under the old Business Improvement District there wasn’t a lot of improvement.
“It’s something Councilmember Ferreras and I have been working very hard for a long period of time and we are finally beginning to see it realized,” said City Councilman Daniel Dromm.
“Our BID was not benefitting from the beautification that BID dollars should be getting and that’s when I reached out to the commissioner and asked him to walk the district,” said City Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras.
The BID runs from 37th to Baxter Avenue and after witnessing some of the problems the new group worked with the city on a 100 day plan to improve the area with the BID’s $225,000 budget.
“They have picked a new leader and what you see now is a lot more services: A graffiti removal program, a new website that’s coming. They’re talking about special events,” said Small Business Service Commissioner Rob Walsh.
“We want to focus on promoting 82nd Street as one of the city’s most diverse authentic and vibrant food and shopping corridors,” said 82nd Street Partnership Executive Director Seth Taylor.
The city says if the current plans are successful it would be open to the idea of expanding the BID another 20 blocks to Citi Field.
From Streetsblog: By Noah Kazis
A group of politicians including the two hosts, State Senator Toby Ann Stavisky, and Assembly Members Grace Meng and Francisco Moya called for reopening Elmhurst’s Long Island Railroad Station, shuttered in 1985 due to low ridership. And to help bus and subway riders across the city, Elmhurst’s reps said the state would need to find new, dedicated revenue for transit.
Underlying the entire evening discussion was Elmhurst’s explosive population growth, fed by a vibrant immigrant community. The population of Elmhurst and the surrounding neighborhoods of Corona, East Elmhurst and Jackson Heights grew 40 percent between 1980 and 2010, and many believe recent estimates for the area are too low. “Elmhurst continues to grow and multiply,” said Crowley, “but we have still been limited to the same modes of transportation.”
Residents complained of crowded buses and leaky subway stations, demanding more investment in their neighborhood. Just under half of subway riders interviewed by Transportation Alternatives at a nearby station said they had a one-way commute of 45 minutes or more.
Crowley, who also serves as head of the Queens Democratic Party, said that more and better transit has to be part of the solution for the neighborhood. “It’s about more livable communities, places that provide access to people,” he said. “It’s about finding smarter ways to move people about.”
“You can’t run a city like New York City unless you have a high-quality mass transit system,” agreed Dromm.
Previous transit town halls have taken place in Flushing, Jamaica, and Soundview. Much of the evening’s discussion focused on the effort led by Crowley and Dromm to reopen the neighborhood’s LIRR station, located on Broadway near Whitney Avenue. “The people are here,” said Stavisky. “They’re ready to use the railroad.”
A representative for the LIRR expressed enthusiasm for the possibility of reopening the station after the completion of the MTA’s current capital plan in 2014; he said improvements currently being built would be necessary to ensure that trains stopping in Elmhurst weren’t already full once they arrived.
He also said that the station would have elevator access to the platforms, which earned acclaim from the largely older population attending the meeting. “From here to Mid-Manhattan is an hour and twenty minutes at least,” said one Elmhurst resident who currently has to take the bus because she is in a wheelchair. “I do it three times a week.” Added her friend, “If you build it, we will come.”
While the politicians didn’t endorse a specific revenue source to pay for the changes, they knew that Elmhurst won’t get something for nothing. “That’s why finding ways to raise additional funding for the MTA to make improvements, for the Elmhurst station, for any of the subway lines, in reality, is so important,” said Dromm. “Without some source of dedicated funding, we’re going to see more neglect, unfortunately.”
“The most important part is finding alternative resources so we can invest and reinvest in our mass transit system,” said Crowley. He didn’t endorse a particular revenue stream, but said that White’s list included a number of potential options.
The congressman also noted that in addition to finding new revenues, the MTA needs to hold on to those it has from the federal government. The Republican proposal for a transportation bill, which Crowley fought against, could have cost the MTA up to a billion dollars a year by eliminating the share of gas tax revenues going to transit. “We need to not cut,” he said. “I know that the Senate is working on a two year extender at the current levels, which is not optimum but is better than what they were doing in the House.” Crowley said he was hopeful that Congress would pass a transportation bill this year, but that he wasn’t holding his breath.
Meng, who along with Stavisky also attended the transit town hall in Flushing last summer, spoke passionately about the importance of transit. “For the future and success of the Queens economy, I think mass transit is vital,” she said. She noted that many of her constituents see building more parking as the best way to improve transportation, but investing in transit was a better idea.
Moya pitched transit improvements as a way to improve the ever-worsening congestion on Queens streets. “We need to find a solution to how we can ease a lot of the traffic that we’re seeing throughout the communities. So many people travel by car,” he said, “because of the lack of a train.”
From NY1: By Tina Redwine
Should the Long Island Rail Road build a new station in Elmhurst, Queens? Some residents hope so.
“It’s just so much faster than a subway. If you can afford it, it’s definitely the way to go,” said Elmhurst resident Andrew Ruf.
There was a station in the neighborhood until about 25 years ago, when the LIRR demolished it because few riders used it.
On Thursday, area Congressman Joseph Crowley and City Councilman Daniel Dromm toured the old site with the railroad’s president, Helena Williams.
Crowley said the station would allow a shorter commute and more family time for residents.
“It’s not just about getting to and from work. It’s about a better standard of living and a better quality of life,” said Crowley.
Census figures show there are 40 percent more people living in Elmhurst than there were when the station closed. Dromm said locals are not happy with the subway service.
“The subway stops are crowded, that often times they have some delays on the subway. they’d like to have another option,” said Dromm.
Williams said an Elmhurst station is a possibility.
“We are doing things along the line that gives us the opportunity to add trains, by adding trains it becomes once again feasible to stop trains in the outer boroughs,” said Williams.
She said Elmhurst is the only new station the LIRR is considering.
The decision to build the station depends largely on how many riders will use it, so the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is doing a survey to see how many bus, subway and vans riders here would pay more to take the LIRR.
A full-fare ticket from Elmhurst would be $7.25 cents, $5 more than the subway. But the LIRR would get riders into Manhattan 25 minutes faster and eventually all the way to Grand Central Terminal, once the East Side Access project is completed.
“It’s worth it because time is money,” said an Elmhurst resident.
MTA officials say the new station would cost between $20 million to $30 million.
He also weighed in on a number of issues relating to the city at large, including his ongoing support of the living wage bill, his distaste for some of the NYPD’s practices, and why he strongly supports the removal of churches from the city’s schools.
When asked if he would be running for reelection in 2013, Dromm, who beat out incumbent Councilwoman Helen Sears in September 2009, answered, “Absolutely.”
“It’s the best job I’ve ever had,” he said. Looking back at his administration to date, he said, “the biggest thing we’ve done is to preserve open space.”
This includes his efforts to expand Travers Park, on 34th Avenue between 77th and 78th streets — one of Jackson Heights’ lone green spaces — by acquiring land from the Garden School, a private institution across the street, which Dromm said would nearly double the park’s size.
Negotiations to buy the school’s yard first began in August 2010, he said. The councilman eventually secured $4 million — $1 million from his funds and $3 million from the City Council’s Queens delegation — along with an additional $1 million from Borough President Helen Marshall, to buy the land. And despite a competing bid for the yard from a developer early last year, Dromm said the “signing on the dotted line” for the green space would take place soon.
Turning to the creation of the 37th Road Plaza — the stretch of the road between 73rd and 74th streets was closed to traffic last September — Dromm emphasized he continues to believe the space and related traffic changes are a boon for the community, despite the much-publicized discontent of a group of Bangladeshi businesses located on or near the plaza.
“They’re too late to the table,” he said of the dissenters. “They’re going to have to adjust.”
The process that led to the creation of the plaza took three years, Dromm said. A Department of Transportation study on the area had input from “close to 500 people,” but all six businesses on the particular stretch of 37th Road affected “chose not to participate.”
One of the factors hurting businesses there, Dromm added, was moving a bus route from 73rd Street to 75th Street, something he said has reduced travel time by eight minutes.
Increased congestion as the result of a new grocery store that may open on the plaza, however, has Dromm concerned. A part of the marquee of the old Eagle Theater on the plaza has already come down, even as Dromm continues to hope the owner of the building can be convinced not to allow the store.
“My hope is that the business owners will work with us,” Dromm said. The store would not be a small one, but would sell “50-pound bags of rice” and other goods in large quantities.
“It’s effectively like putting a Costco in the middle of a residential area,” he said.
Turning to development nearby that he was pleased with, Dromm noted that Italian chain restaurant Famous Famiglia will be renting a two-story, 4,000-square-foot space in the 7 train terminal on 75th Street and Roosevelt Avenue, which has been empty for eight years. He said he began looking for people to lease the space as early as December 2009, before he had even taken office, and that the restaurant was a key component of the area’s overall economic development.
But he did not mince words when it came to the MTA.
“They basically are our worst enemies in terms of economic development,” he said, referring not only to the agency’s seeming inability to rent the space in the past, but also to the persistent pigeon poop problem around the 7 train’s Jackson Heights station.
Dromm went on to address citywide concerns, including his ongoing support for the living wage bill, a compromise version of which was recently proposed by Council Speaker Christine Quinn. The bill would raise the wages of workers in developments that have received subsidies to $10 an hour with benefits, or $11.50 without. But with Quinn’s compromise, the raised wages would only apply to building service employees at such projects, and not necessarily the employees of any businesses that rent space from them.
“I believe in paying workers well,” Dromm said simply. “Especially where you’re giving tax abatements, then I think the city should be an advocate” for workers, he added.
Referring to the Queens Center Mall, where some tenants, such as J.C. Penney’s, have nonunionized employees, Dromm said he is for the workers.
“What we’re asking from Macerich [the Mall’s owner] is only neutrality,” he said.
Beyond the living wage bill, citywide issues Dromm addressed included the police practice of stop and frisk and the NYPD’s widespread surveillance of Muslim communities.
“I think Ray Kelly is very popular,” Dromm said, adding he’s “surprised at how teflon [Kelly] is,” referring to the commisioner’s seeming invicibility.
“We’ve seen police corruption all over the place.” Surveilling Muslim civilians is, to Dromm, the beginning of a “slippery slope.”
Rounding up the meeting, Dromm turned to the issue of the separation of church and schools, as churches continue to battle a Department of Education order banning any religious organization from renting space in city schools.
Dromm strongly supports the separation, by and large because of what he characterized as insidious attempts on the parts of churches and other organizations to “evangelize” to public school students.
“They are calling this church planting,” he said. Some of the churches in the city aren’t just in a school “every Sunday,” he said, “but week after week after week.”
Dromm said he had previously supported efforts to remove the Boy Scouts from schools by and large because of the organization’s refusal to accept gay members or leaders.
When asked whether his holding the occasional public meeting in a church or synagogue was at all hypocritical, the councilman answered that he pays full rent for such spaces, while religious organizations get a subsidized rent in the schools they occupy.
At the meeting’s end, Dromm proudly identified himself as one of the City Council’s most “progressive” members, adding that treading the “middle of the road” was not the reason he had taken up office. “I enjoy being a progressive voice on these issues,” he said.
