See You In September

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On Tuesday 14 May 2013, Community Board 9 met at Maple Grove Cemetery. The following comments were made by the NoWayQueensWay spokesperson:

Mr. Chairman; Ladies and Gentlemen:

…Once again, I’m here on behalf of the nearly 200 homeowners and taxpayers of 98 Street in Woodhaven. Once again, I’m here to register their displeasure concerning the proposed bike path through our backyards.

Mr. Chairman, I’m going to take the summer off. My neighbors and I will continue to oppose this bike path, but for the next few months, at least, we will wage our fight in other venues. I plan to enjoy the backyard the bozos from the Trust for Public Lands, along with their local henchmen, hope to destroy.

But before I go, Mr. Chairman, I have two things I’d like to leave with you. The first is a copy of the petition that circulated up and down 98 Street. Over 200 residents responded and over 98% opposed any development along the old Rockaway rail line. Only four ill-informed people favored the bike path.

The second item is a copy of the Reed College study from 2003. Reed College was enlisted by the city of Portland, Oregon to study the impact of various zoning changes on property values. It is a study NoWayQueensWay has referred to time and again. It is a study the proponents of the boondoggle have artfully ignored.

“Trust the people from San Francisco and Alaska, rather than your own neighbors,” they say. “Trust the Trust.” They would rather deal in public relations and cheap gimcracks than with facts and common sense.

Allow me, Mr. Chairman, to quote briefly from the Reed College study:

…trails and cemeteries within 200 feet of a property were found to have a statistically significant effect on a property’s sales price…Specialty parks were estimated to increase sales price…while trails and cemeteries were estimated to decrease a property’s sale by 6.81% and 4.36% respectively…

So please, Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, end CB 9′s ludicrous support for this impending debacle, and have a safe, enjoyable summer.

Perhaps you could enjoy an afternoon pedaling along the Brooklyn-Queens Greenway. That’s a bike path the City positively, without-a-doubt-about-it, absolutely had to build…and nobody uses it. Perhaps, if it ruined property values and quality of life, it would be more popular with the cognescenti. In any event, I will see you when the leaves begin to change and frost replaces the morning dew.

Thank you.

The Reed College study is now in the hands of the FQs. They can’t claim “Oh, we didn’t know.” The ball is in their court. Next month (June 2013), without waiting for the results of the $500,000 feasibility study, the FQs will organize their Conservancy. Will they be honest and tell the prospective donors, “You’re charitable donation will go a long way to subvert property values, destroy quality of life, and threaten the safety of homeowners, taxpayers, and residents along 98 Street in Woodhaven”? 

Have a Nice (gag) Day!

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Well, now they’ve wheeled out the big guns and taken deadly aim on 98 Street.

The FQs are distributing buttons. It’s one of those insipid things that declare, “I (heart)…” something, whatever, who cares. Only the smiley face buttons from the 1970s are more saccharine, more nauseating. Have a nice (gag) day!

State tax dollars collected from the people of New York was taken from the NYS Office for People with Developmental Disabilities budget and other important programs and given to the FQs and their carpet bagging cronies.

(Do FQs even live or pay taxes in NYS? They come from California and Portlandia, Florida, and Alaska. Absolutely none of them live on 98 Street. There must be a reverse residency requirement. You must need an out-of-state address; a foreign passport; Pennsylvania license plates.)

What have they done with this money? Produced those g-d awful buttons. Have a nice (gag) day!

They have the Queens Chamber of Commerce. They have school children from the Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School petitioning out-of-towners. They have a Floridian on the New York Times editorial board. They have a group of San Francisco-based “lawyers, real estate professionals, and bankers.” With all this high-powered, well-financed, politically-connected grease, what have they come up with?

“I (heart)…” the erosion of property values, the ruination of quality of life, and the endangerment of public safety. Have a nice (gag) day!

How can <NoWayQueensWay.org> compete? All we have is the Reed College study. We have the long American tradition, dating back to the days before patriotism could be bartered and sold, of private property rights. We have common sense. We have logic. How can we compete?

Instead of “I (heart)…” this cockamamie bike path, the button should read “What, me worry?” Because, it seems, that even Alfred E Newman is an FQ.

We are being continually told, by Alfred E Newman, by Travis Terry, by a small clique on Community Board 9, don’t worry. The Trust for Public Land has the answers. Trust the Trust (nice motto, eh?). Rely on their expertise.

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”

These are the same folks who promised an open dialogue with the community and an on-line newsletter. These are the same folks who believe that residents of Forest Hills and Rego Park will quit their jobs in Manhattan when this cockamamie bike path is built. They will quit their jobs and seek employment near Kennedy Airport. Why? In order to commute by bicycle. You can’t make this stuff up.

“I could definitely see people using [the bike path] for commuting” to work near JFK, according to Trust for Public Land VP Adrian Benepe (February 2013). Get real, bro.

Adrian Benepe used to be Parks & Recreation Commissioner here in New York City. Years ago he was an Urban Park Ranger in Central Park. It sounds like he got a hold of some wicked ‘shrooms while gamboling through The Bramble. One thing’s for sure…Benepe doesn’t live anywhere near 98 Street.

Well…have a nice (gag) day!

A Road Less Traveled

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The following email was sent to Roman Kudryashov, editor of Fresh Meadows Life magazine. The May 2013 issue contains an interview with Travis Terry. Mr. Terry is the Founding FQ. He lives in Forest Hills, far from his proposed bike path, and once told the Queens Courier (12-28-2011) that his bike trail “is something locals have had interest in for some time.” We should be grateful to Mr. Terry for knowing our hearts better than we do ourselves [sarcasm].

And so, without further ado:

Dear Mr. Kudryashov:  Concerning your May 2013 interview with Travis Terry, <nowayqueensway.org> is also available for an interview and a two-page spread in Fresh Meadows Life magazine.

As homeowners and residents of 98 Street in Woodhaven, we are wary of a Fresh Meadows publication, owned by a British company and printed in Pennsylvania, featuring an interview with a guy from Forest Hills about our neighborhood. This is a textbook example of “carpetbagging.”

Mr. Terry and his minions have repeatedly spoken about vague studies (name them, dammit!) that “show…property values of houses close to rail-to-trail conversions” increasing. They have consistently ignored the findings of Dr. Noelwah Netusil, an associate professor of Economics at Reed College in Oregon. The studies Mr. Terry refers to usually bury Dr. Netusil‘s work in a footnote.

Entitled “The Effects of Environmental Zoning and Amenities on Property Values: Portland, Oregon” (2003) the study found that:

“Specialty parks, trails, and cemeteries within 200 feet of property were found to have a statistically significant effect on a property’s sales price…trails and cemeteries were estimated to decrease [emphasis added] a property’s sale by 6.81% and 4.36% respectively.” (p. ix) Again, the people of 98 Street would be better off if Mr. Terry was a
grave digger.

Mr. Terry and his minions, despite their claims, don’t want to “work with communities to help enhance and improve their neighborhoods.” They want to build this cockamamie bike trail no matter what, and the public be damned. They don’t mean to, but Mr. Terry and his minions will ruin property values, destroy the quality of life, and threaten the safety of the residents and homeowners along 98 Street in Woodhaven. They lack the requisite mens rea, but it’s still a crime.

Mr. Terry and his minions know about this report. But they have not and will not, because they can not, address the issues raised by the Reed College study. Perhaps Fresh Meadows Life would be interested in giving equal time to both sides of the argument?

Very truly yours, A Troll from 98 Street

No doubt the cynics will be making book on whether Mr. Kudryashov responds. We shall see.

Suffer the Little Children

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Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph!  Is there no limit to their perfidy? Have they, at last, no shame?

The carpetbaggers at the Trust for Public Land have wantonly spent our tax dollars, like drunken sailors on leave, luring pigs to the trough. They have seduced members of CB 9, co-opted the New York Times editorial board, and purchased (no doubt, at cut rate prices) the Queens Chamber of Commerce; all in a conspiracy dedicated to destroying the property values, polluting the quality of life, and imperiling the public safety along 98 Street in Woodhaven. But that wasn’t enough for them!

The FQs have now begun to employ their black arts to corrupt innocent children! They have launched a diabolical “education campaign,” similar, in many aspects, to Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Having spun a web composed of woolly-headed goo-goo, pliant politicians, and putative journalists, they seek to snare the souls of “tweens.”

A poorly-written letter is being sent to local officials from a self-described “Social Studies teacher at Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School (MELS) in Queens.” Queens? That’s Rego Park, ma’am. Does this flak even live in Queens? She certainly doesn’t live on 98 Street!

Under the cover of teaching the roots of democracy and citizen participation, the 6th graders at MELS have instead been recruited as foot soldiers in a partisan dogfight. It is an exercise in what George Orwell, in his novel 1984, called “newspeak:”

“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

And, apparently, “grassroots movement” is a well-financed cabal of lawyers, financial experts, and real estate interests, with a well-oiled public relations apparatus, willing and able to enlist a Svengali with a teaching certificate to exploit her 6th graders to further a partisan agenda.

What else will she “teach” her captive audience of pubescent charges? That all men are created equal, but some are more equal than others? (That’s an allusion to another book by Orwell this “teacher” probably hasn’t read.) This isn’t a drive safely or don’t litter campaign. This “teacher” has used her class to lobby and petition on behalf of the FQs.

She claims to have spent two months teaching about the roots of democracy in ancient Athens and the Roman Republic. But she seems to have forgotten, if indeed she ever knew, that narrow special interest and plutocracy doomed both Athenian democracy and Roman republicanism. Has she forgotten that both Athens and Rome degenerated into tyranny and despotism? She is oblivious to the corrupting influence of money, not only in American politics, but in her own classroom as well.

Perhaps she should return to school. Here’s a suggested syllabus: the sanctity of private property; the constitutional protection of minority rights; and the cherished principle of limited government. Does she know the meaning of critical thinking? Does her academic freedom give her license to propagandize? Why wasn’t equal time given to opposing views?

She is either a willing co-conspirator in the machinations of the FQs, or a sad, pathetic dupe. In either case, it’s her students who will suffer.

Patriots’ Day 2013

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In April 1775, a hardy band of middle-class homeowners stood on Lexington Green to confront the imperial might of an insatiable enemy; an enemy that had traveled 3000 miles to wreak havoc on property values, quality of life, and safety in that quiet New England town.

In April 2013, another band of middle-class homeowners stood on the Jamaica Avenue overpass to confront the political clout of another insatiable adversary; an adversary that had also traveled 3000 miles to wreak havoc on property values, quality of life, and safety along a quiet Woodhaven street.

The first group are called patriots and have been turned into plaster saints; dim historical figures in ponytails and funny hats who seemingly have no bearing on 21st century reality. The second group are called nimbies and are portrayed as selfish cranks; Luddites with vinyl siding and domestic beers standing in the way of the Californication of Queens.

But whether the threat comes from George III and his Hessian mercenaries, or from the Trust for Public Land and its FQ hirelings, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Yesterday it was the Stamp Act. Today it’s a bike path. Tomorrow it might very well be your home!

The minutemen fired a volley and dispersed. The British burned Concord. The people of 98 Street hung a banner (“NoWayQnWay“) and went home. The FQs sent their bully-boys to hack and hew the banner down. The destruction of 98 Street will come later.

Any hint of dissension had to be quashed quickly. The little guy must not be allowed to freely stand up, to speak up. That kind of antisocial behavior might spread. No, no…best to silence the opposition without hesitation, without quarter…If only we could catch them when they’re young and indoctrinate them properly….

If only the FQs were as quick to repair sidewalks, maintain our parks, fund libraries as they are to trample 1st amendment rights, then the sacrifice of those men during that other April will not have been in vain; their fate something better than plaster sainthood.

The Great Gatsby Redux

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“They were careless people…they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they made.” 

The Great Gatsby (1925) by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Some things, like human nature, never change. The FQs may very well build their bike path. They have the money and the authority and the clout. They think this gives them not just the power but the right. They assumed they can’t be wrong because they mean well.

And when the plan fails; when the property values along 98 Street tumble; when the quality of life along 98 Street lies in tatters; when the safety of 98 Street is but a dim memory…

They will shrug, congratulate themselves for their own efforts, admire each others’ altruism, and move on in search of another neighborhood to ruin.

CB 9 Meeting: 04-09-2013

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The following remarks were made during the Public Forum at the Community Board 9 meeting held on Tuesday 9 April 2013 at Villa Russo’s, Richmond Hill:

I speak tonight on behalf of the nearly 200 homeowners, taxpayers, and residents of 98 Street in Woodhaven.

I am here not just to object, in general, to the construction of a frivolous bike path through our neighborhood, but to lodge, in particular, a protest against the latest campaign by the San Francisco-based Trust for Public Lands and their local lapdogs. This campaign is designed to slander the good people of Woodhaven and Ozone Park by describing the neighborhood as an “eyesore, littered and graffiti-filled.”

A few of you have actually been in my backyard. I defy you, right here, right now: tell this audience that you found my backyard to be an “eyesore, littered and graffiti-filled.” All of you are invited. Come on by and actually gaze upon the scene of the crime-to-come.

Admittedly, it is overgrown. We like it that way. It prevents the rapists and thieves from bicycling down from Forest Park and gaining access to our backyards and our families.

If the railway south of Atlantic Avenue has fallen into disrepair, then fix it. Fix it south of Atlantic Avenue and leave one of the loveliest blocks in Woodhaven alone. And if the people of Rego Park want a bike path to Forest Park, then build it. Build it to Forest Park and leave one of the loveliest blocks in Woodhaven alone.

If you insist on helping the good folks on 98 Street, then get us more street trees. Unlike the New York Times, we don’t mind “a forest that only thickens.”

The fact is that those parts of the old Rockaway line that are graffiti-filled or littered, are within the purview of CB 9. These areas should be remedied by CB 9; not by outsiders.

When littered built up on 91 Avenue under the Rockaway overpass, the Sanitation Department was called. And they responded. When graffiti got out-of-hand in Woodhaven, Ed Wendell and the Woodhaven Residents’ Block Association went out and cleaned it up. CB 5 has an anti-graffiti program. What’s wrong with CB 9?

Maybe with new leadership in the offing, CB 9 will begin to address neighborhood problems with innovative, sensible, neighborhood-based solutions. As a first step, perhaps CB 9 should formally reverse its stance on this ridiculous proposal

Thank you.

Here’s some other news that may bear, however indirectly, on the issue:

On Wednesday 10 April, Arthur Mercado was buried at the National Cemetery in Calverton. Arthur was a Vietnam-era veteran. He had lived in a shelter since 2009 and died last September at Elmhurst Hospital. His unclaimed body sat on ice for 7 months while the local American Legion Post raised enough money to bury Arthur with some dignity.

The New York State legislature enacted a balanced budget for the third year in a row. They did it by carving $90 million from the budget for the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities. Calculate the loss of federal matching funds, and that’s a $180 million hit.

New York State can underwrite a bogus feasibility study aimed at destroying the property values, ruining the quality of life, and threatening the safety of the residents of 98 Street, but can’t cough up any do-re-mi to bury a veteran or fully fund aid to “the least of our brothers.”

God bless America and drive safely.

Give the Devil Its Due

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OMG!!

Since NoWayQueensWay got underway, 98 Street and environs are really getting spruced up. Now the sidewalks are being replaced! We thought you had to sleep with the Mayor, or surrender your first-born to the Prince of Darkness to get new sidewalks.

Boy those FQs really get the job done when you embarrass their sorry selves, don’t they?

What else can we complain about? As soon as we do, the FQs get all flustered and jump in and fix it:  102 Street repaved; the “Out of Order” sign torn off the fire alarm box on 98 Street; the catch basin on 97 Street at 91 Avenue repaired. And now, oh-my-goodness-I-can-hardly-control-myself-as-I-hop-from-foot-to-foot, new sidewalks!!

Let’s see…maybe the FQs can get rid of the DH rule, low calorie beer, chubby middle-aged women in 2-piece bathing suits, domed stadiums, automatic transmissions, bigotry, world hunger, sin, and injustice.

Go ahead…but we still won’t acquiesce in a damn bike path that will lower our property values, ruin our quality of life, and threaten our safety.

Don’t fall for this stuff about poor mothers, weighed down by kids and accessories, on the bus coming from South Richmond Hill or Ozone Park. The purpose of this bike path is to furnish a pleasant few hours to the people of Rego Park and Portlandia, Cobb County and Forest Hills. Provide them with a afternoon of bike riding down to 103 Avenue where they can get a gelato or a cappuccino, before heading back.

Maybe this why the FQs are fixing up our neighborhood?

And while we’re on the topic, has anyone else noticed that there’s no “destination” at the northern end of this train wreck? Middle-class bicyclists will be drawn south to the “new international food festival” that 103 Avenue will become.

But there’s no reason for all those poor mothers, all those poor kids, all those accessories from Ozone Park and South Richmond Hill [remember them?] to travel beyond Forest Park. After all, you really can’t get good gelato or decent cappuccino in Forest Hills, now can you? [Note to FQs: that's sarcasm.]

A coincidence? If you think so, we got some land in Florida you might be interested in…

 

 

A Tunnel of Love

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In an earlier post, the tender, heartwarming faith FQs placed upon gates and fences and security cameras was examined. God bless their little pointed heads! As sweet and naive as that faith is, those of us who haven’t booked passage on the Good Ship Lollipop know that gates and fences and security cameras won’t protect the property values, quality of life, or personal safety of the residents of 98 Street.

This brings us back to an even earlier argument. When the gates and the lights and the security cameras on the bike path are vandalized or stolen, will the City have the money for repairs? The City doesn’t have the money for the lights at Victory Field. More importantly, is our firehouse safe?

We finally embarrassed the FQs enough to get 102 Street resurfaced. And a DEP crew was spotted a few weeks ago at 97 Street and 91 Avenue snaking the catch basin. They even sent somebody down 98 Street to tear the “Out of Order” sign off the broken fire box.

Maybe, just maybe the FQs have had an epiphany. Maybe, just maybe the FQs have found the common good as fulfilling as resume building. Maybe, just maybe the FQs have found serving the community as satisfying as massaging their own egos. Maybe, just maybe the FQs have turned a new leaf and will start doing the job they’re supposed to do.

Yeah, and maybe, just maybe the Mets will sweep the World Series. Don’t hold your breath, bunkie.

A project similar to this bike path was foisted on the people of Cobb County, Georgia. You may have seen the New York Times article (02-14-2013) about this extravaganza. The FQs were all a-flutter about it on Facebook.

Leave aside for the moment the question of why Queens would want to be more like Cobb County, Georgia. You may recall that Cobb County outlawed the teaching of evolution in their public schools a few years back. The proponents of the Cobb County project had the unmitigated gall to write, “…users of the [bike path] actually become another set of eyes for ill-behavior, thus [sic] such facilities make neighborhoods safer.” The tortured syntax is enough to convince us that’s a lie.

They tell us, oh those “users” will make the bike path safer. As Judge Judy once said, “Please don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.” Those “users” are the people we’re worried about. Those “users” are the ones checking out our backyards and garages. Those “users” are the ones peeking into our 2nd floor bathrooms and leering into our back bedrooms.

And the FQs, who all live several blocks away from the old Rockaway line, still insist that this situation will increase our property values. Oh really? That must be why there are so many 2nd and 3rd floor luxury apartments along the route of the J Train!

If the kids or the homeless are up there now; if they find their way onto the old tracks, they are easily chased away. They are not malicious and they are not looking for trouble. They know they’re not supposed to be up there. But build a bike path and what was once out-of-bounds becomes a public space and hanging out is allowed. Heck, hanging out is encouraged!

They tell us, oh there will be a wall to protect your privacy. How high will this wall be? In many of the yards along 98 Street, the old rail embankment is so close to our back doors that we can throw ping pong balls and reach it. How will this 3 story wall, looming over our backyards, blocking the morning sun from our kitchens, increase property values?

But wait; imagine the impact these walls will have on the bike path itself. Imagine a tunnel, lights smashed, running from Rego Park to Ozone Park. Imagine being inside this tunnel. Cozy, huh?

In February, Community Board 9 informed our elected officials that “many residents in this community board rely on public transportation, and the requirement to take a bus to a park, weighed down with all of the accessories that come with children, can be an absolutely daunting task.” Honestly, what bus was this?

Somehow, letting these people walk or bike to Forest Park along an unlit, unguarded, environmentally-sound tunnel, “weighed down with all the accessories that come with children,” would be less daunting. These mothers with strollers can join the stampede of graffiti vandals into our neighborhood. Imagine the privacy afforded to the criminal element and the homeless inside that tunnel. Imagine all the “family-friendly” sights along the bike path. This, according to Community Board 9, “is essential to the physical, mental and emotional well-being of our residents” but not, apparently, if you live along 98 Street.

We have an offer for the FQs:  if this is such a good deal, let’s swap houses. You move to 98 Street and enjoy all of the benefits that will accrue as a result of your bike path. You think the bike path is such a good idea and we disagree. You move here and we will move to Kew Gardens and Forest Hills and north Richmond Hill.

Now is the time to put up or shut up.

All The News That Fits

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The San Francisco-based Trust for Public Land will be touring the scene of the crime on Thursday 28 March between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. Firms interested in doing the actual dirty work on the proposed bike path will send representatives to tour the old Rockaway branch of the LIRR. These representatives will be held incognito, isolated from outside contaminants, and closely guarded lest they meet an honest-to-goodness Queens resident.

These representatives, their ignorance fortified, their virtue unsullied, will return to their climate-controlled beehives and draw up the plans that will reduce our property values, ruin our quality of life, and threaten our safety.

This is part of a contest to see who will take state money away from public schools and senior citizen centers, from medical care and veterans’ programs. This is part of a contest to use state money to bolster some woolly-headed planner’s resume. This is part of a contest to use state money to reduce our property values, ruin our quality of life, and threaten our safety.

Why? Because they can. It’s the very essence of totalitarianism.

NoWayQueensWay offered to send a representative. The presence of our representative “would provide a unique perspective to be considered by potential consultants” who would be paid with our money. No one responded.

Conversations with FQs tend to be one-sided. They don’t like our tone. This is a problem when you’re dealing with some high-toned, fancy-pants out-of-towner. They think we’re rude.

We are rude; rude but truthful. In our  offer to send a representative on this Magical Mystery Tour of the as yet uncharted stretches of Queens, we closed with a paraphrase of Lyndon Johnson. Wouldn’t it be better to have us inside the tent p***ing out than outside the tent p***ing in?

Too many of these FQs are from somewhere else. They come from San Francisco; from Sunnybrook Farms; from Alaska; from Portlandia; and now, the newest entry, from Florida.

A very nice, well-meaning, clueless lady from Florida, who probably passes through Queens on her way to the Hamptons, lavished praise on this dopey bike path idea in the august pages of the (drum roll, please!) New York Times (03-17-2013).

She gushed about the HighLine. She called it “an often-crowded walkway stretching for more than a mile above Manhattan’s West Side.” Want to bet this refugee from the Sunshine State doesn’t live under the HighLine?

She wants to clear a trail in hopes that it will “be as crowded on weekends as Times Square.” Want to bet this refugee from skeeters and gators doesn’t live right up against Times Square?

She waxed eloquently about food. “Just Imagine the Food,” she crooned. This is big with transplants. They grow up in Armpit Junction, Nebraska or someplace, where egg noodles with ketchup passes for spaghetti marinara, land in New York and wham! Like St. Paul on the road to Damascus, discover real food.

The residents of 98 Street don’t need a bike path to enjoy “cheese guava buns, dim sum dumplings, pani puri [and] yam fufu.” We make our own. We also prepare our own empanadas; our own osso buco; our own lamb curry; our own duk mandu guk; our own corned beef; our own bakmi bakso.

Unlike yuppie Manhattan or hipster Brooklyn, Queens doesn’t have to celebrate diversity because we live it every day. The yuppies and hipsters haven’t driven the real folks out of Queens. Yet.

She closes with this: this boondoggle “offers far more promise than a forest that only thickens…” [John Muir is spinning in his grave!] Is she suggesting hotdog stands in Golden Gate Park? Falafel wagons near the Everglades? Mr. Softee trucks on Mt. McKinley?

Nah. That’s too close to their backyards.