The round-table was the…
By Dustin Brown
When a few of the people shaping the future of Queens presented their ideas last week at a round-table sponsored by Baruch College, they offered some diverse opinions of what the borough can claim as its most valued resources.
The round-table was the first of a three-part series at the Steven L. Newman Real Estate Institute at CUNY’s Baruch College, designed to examine Long Island City’s growth as a commercial center.
Although Deputy Borough President Peter Magnani said New York’s natural assets and infrastructure have historically given it a leading edge, “no other ingredient was or still is as key as our people,” he said.
William R. DeCota, director of aviation for the Port Authority, touted an aging resource along the East River that is as criticized as it is coveted.
“LaGuardia is one of the most valuable, scarcest resources in the world,” DeCota said. “Scarce because it’s so constrained, on only 700 acres of land, valuable in terms of the tremendous demand for that facility.”
Museum of Modern Art Project Director William Maloney introduced a priceless array of resources slated to move into Queens within the next year: MOMA’s modern art collection.
Magnani, DeCota and Maloney were only three speakers out of more than a dozen who collectively painted an image of the impending development expected to change the face of Long Island City and western Queens in the upcoming decades.
Deputy Mayor Robert Harding set the tone by admonishing anyone from saying “outer borough,” a term that hardly applied as participants imparted their visions of Queens’ evolution as an extension of Manhattan, blurring the boundary of the East River.
Speakers described Long Island City as an area into which the island’s vast economic resources could easily spill as city growth makes expansion beyond Manhattan more and more necessary.
The round-table was appropriately timed, coming only days after MetLife announced it would move 1,000 employees into a Long Island City building, and a week after the City Planning Commission voted to rezone much of the neighborhood to allow for higher-density development.
“Queens is at its historic peak in population, yet it doesn’t have but three blocks that really support high-density commercial development,” said John Young, Queens director for the Department of City Planning.
The three blocks he referred to were rezoned in the 1980s, making possible the construction of the 50-story Citibank building, the lone office tower piercing through the Queens skyline.
While the rezoning will likely encourage more Manhattan companies like MetLife to cross the East River— and more skyscrapers to join Citibank — the Queens West project has already begun developing commercial and residential properties along the Hunter’s Point waterfront.
Alexander Federbush, president of Queens West Development Corporation, described the project as “the single largest waterfront development project under way in the city of New York.”
Some organizations have planned moves to Long Island City even without the allure of rezoning. The Metropolitan Museum of Art will open gallery space in Long Island City next summer to hold exhibitions and store artwork while the museum’s main space in Manhattan undergoes renovations.
“For two-and-a-half to three years, this is going to be the Museum of Modern Art,” Maloney said. It will continue to store the museum’s collection once renovations are complete, and may continue to function indefinitely as a satellite gallery space.
While impending development projects promise to transform western Queens in the coming years, Magnani stressed that the success of the borough will continue to rest upon the energy and contributions of its immigrants.
“If we look back over the last 200 years, we notice the direct connection between the arrival of people from the world over and the ascendance of our city in terms of physical growth, economic expansion and cultural dominance,” Magnani said.
Reach reporter Dustin Brown by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 154.
