At a Community Board 2 meeting last Thursday, city planner…
By Dustin Brown
The streets in Queens Plaza and Long Island City, notoriously hostile to foot traffic, would be spruced up to improve pedestrian access under two plans drafted by the city Department of Planning.
At a Community Board 2 meeting last Thursday, city planner Penny Lee explained changes to the streetscape that may be implemented through the Queens Plaza Improvements Project — which received $2.2 million through a federal grant — as well as the yet-unfunded Long Island City Links program.
Both projects are designed to render “the front door to Queens” and its surrounding neighborhoods pedestrian-friendly and pleasing to the eye.
“Right now the front door of Queens is an embarrassment,” Lee told the community board.
The presentation was well-received at the CB 2 meeting, where the proposed changes were praised as a welcome relief to a longstanding pedestrian problem.
“It’s long overdue,” said CB 2 chairman Joe Conley. “It’s a great project, and we can’t wait for it to start. It’s been something that people have been trying to call attention to — the pedestrian access, the safety, the beautification of the area — for probably 50 years. So it’s great that City Planning is taking the initiative.”
Both projects are aimed at making the Long Island City area attractive to pedestrians by improving mass transit and adding such amenities as street furniture, lighting, clearer signs, artistic banners, and landscaping. While the Queens Plaza project is specific to that street, the LIC Links proposal focuses on the entire Long Island City neighborhood.
The proposed improvements are tied into the city’s plans to carve a central business district out of a 36-block area in Long Island City.
Deputy Borough President Peter Magnani said the project will render Queens Plaza “more amenable for development by creating amenities there, such as pedestrian plazas, new greenery, trees. And it’s needed in that area.”
The hope is to rekindle the Queens Plaza of a century ago, which the grant papers describe as a 250-foot-wide boulevard with “manicured lawns that were landscaped with flowers planted in the shapes of the moon and stars.” The boulevard lost its turn-of-the-century charm as the city expanded its transportation system: construction of the Queensboro Bridge and the elevated subway tracks eliminated open space and destroyed the pedestrian character of the plaza.
Lee said the study of Queens Plaza will take about nine months before changes can be made.
Under the two-year LIC Links program, ways will be researched to connect residential neighborhoods with the cultural, retail, and waterfront attractions of Long Island City.
U.S. Rep. Joe Crowley (D-Jackson Heights) is trying to get $420,000 from the federal government for the LIC Links project. The remaining 20 percent of the needed funding would have to come from the city.
Reach reporter Dustin Brown by e-mail at timesledgr@aol.com, or call 229-0300, Ext. 154.
