The Flushing Line # 7 train route, especially in Queens, is a diamond in the rough. It has the potential to become one of the most important economic hubs in the City and once it is polished, this gem could be one of the brightest in the City’s crown.
This economic center of activity will be one of the largest and longest in the city, once the two planned extensions are completed.
It will go from Main Street, Flushing in New York City to Secaucus, New Jersey, and would have a daily ridership of more than 100,000 between Grand Central Station and Secaucus.
It will also connect -four stadiums-City Field (Mets), the two tennis stadiums next to City Field and Giants Stadium and Sports Complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey, which is only a 15-minute ride from Secaucus. The Manhattan extension will go from Times Square to 11th Avenue and 34th Street to the Convention Center.
The potential is enormous and it hasn’t escaped the watchful eye of financiers, investors, real estate speculators, politicians and of course small businesses that are the ones, which stand to lose the most.
This is why the Jackson Heights-Corona Business Improvement District (BID) is not favored by many small businesses.
So far, the initial budget of $1.75 million for the BID has been scaled down to much less than a million and it may go along Roosevelt Avenue from 81st to 104th Street with less than a 1.000 businesses participating.
What is most galling is the claim by politicians – read Peralta-Ferreras- that the BID will be good for the community. That it will help clean up the area getting rid of crime, graffiti and other ills.
No it won’t. Especially if it is handled the way these BIDs are normally taken care of. Businesses are levied a new tax to help clean the area to pay for this additional services. Then, once the area is cleaned, the vampires come out and begin to really suck the blood out of the merchants by raising their rents to impossible levels, leaving them no other choice but close their shops.
These businesses, the mom and pop type, that are the backbone of the economic activity along the BID’s targeted area, will be the first casualties in the cleansing of the thoroughfare. High commercial rents will doom them. The irony of the whole situation is that merchants are naïve enough to pay a tax that it will ultimately contribute to their demise.
Along with the disappearing of small businesses, the next casualty are the residents of the area, who are the employees at those shops, and without them, a once diverse and vibrant community, will cease to exist will start to gentrify itself.
It will attract people who can pay those high commercial and residential rents but have no other ties with the community, therefore little loyalty.
Brand name chain stores like Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Subways, Boston Market and others will replace the mom and pop ethnic restaurants that made the area a good place to shop and live. Other box stores in downsized form, begin to replace small shops and before long the area has gone from being a wonderful neighborhood with lots of character to one that is boring, uniform and very expensive.
Before this happens, we, the community have to start asking our politicians why do merchants have to pay an additional tax –now at $75 a month- to do something the city should be doing any way. The more than one thousand businesses in the proposed BID area already pay millions of dollars in taxes to the city, the state and the Federal Government every year. Why do they have to pay more?
Wall Street, the mayor’s darling area, doesn’t pay any extra taxes to keep the area clean, lighted and crime free. Why should the merchants in Corona, Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and other have to?
I guess, it is because our politicians in Queens lack leadership, don’t care for the community or don’t have the guts it takes to stand to our bully mayor, who fortunately won’t be in Gracie Mansion too much longer, and demand the same quality of service other areas of the City get.
If the Jackson Heights-Corona BID, is approved, the area is doomed. The assault has already begun in Willets Point and its next target is, its next-door neighbors, Corona and Jackson Heights.
By Eduardo Giraldo, entreprenuer and owner of Abetx, a insurance company
Egiraldo@aol.com