By Dustin Brown
One month after a zip code change expanded the Middle Village boundary to the Long Island Expressway, the Juniper Park Civic Association awarded its Man of the Year honor to the congressman who made it happen.
U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-Jackson Heights) accepted the honor last Thursday at the civic's monthly meeting at the Our Lady of Hope gymnasium, where civic leaders also tackled concerns about traffic safety and graffiti.
“He's really transformed the area, to say the least,” said the civic's president, Robert Holden, who spearheaded the fight to include the southern section of Elmhurst below the LIE in Middle Village's zip code. The change became official on Jan. 28, more than two decades after civic leaders first fought for it.
“This time within two years it was a done deal,” Holden said. “The catalyst was Joe Crowley.”
Crowley rode a train up from Washington, D.C. so he could receive the award in person despite the snowstorm that pelted the city much of the day. He had coordinated the zip code change with the local post master.
“I've always had a special spot in my heart for this community,” said Crowley, who no longer represents much of the area because his district's boundaries changed in the last election cycle.
Joseph Cannisi, the borough commissioner for the city Department of Transportation, appeared at the meeting to answer residents' concerns about traffic safety.
Holden cited specific fears about the intersection of 69th Street and Grand Avenue by the Long Island Expressway, where 17-year-old Daniela D'Angelo was killed in December by a car that plowed onto the sidewalk. The driver's license had been suspended repeatedly.
Although some people want the city to install bollards on sidewalks to protect pedestrians from out-of-control vehicles, Cannisi said it was unclear whether such devices could withstand the force of large vehicles like SUVs. The bollards may also cause more problems if they deflect vehicles back into oncoming traffic.
“The concern is whether or not it actually improves safety,” Cannisi said.
The city is still weighing whether bollards would be an appropriate solution, he said.
Holden called for the Police Department to step up its enforcement of the traffic laws, specifically by assigning a few dozen more officers to the understaffed 104th Precinct and putting half of them on traffic patrol.
“You're not going to get caught” if you run a red light, Holden said. “If you do, it's one in a million.”
When some people raised questions about the extensive network of one-way streets between the LIE and Juniper Valley Park, Cannisi said the one-way conversions came in response to the community's complaints about cars cutting through the neighborhood to avoid highway traffic.
“There's no question it's inconvenient to get around the neighborhood,” Cannisi said. “All of that was designed to have the community protected from thru-traffic.”
Cannisi stressed, however, that the Police Department is responsible for traffic enforcement.
“No society would accept the violation rate of traffic law if it was criminal law,” Cannisi said.
But Holden retorted, 'Many times the result is the same – people die.”
Officer Frank Vasquez of the Patrol Borough Queens North crime prevention team encouraged people to fight and clean up graffiti, because otherwise “we're basically telling the criminals out there the neighborhood is uncared for.”
The key, he said, is to remove tags as soon as they appear. The Police Department expects to start organizing community graffiti cleanups in the next month.
“If graffiti goes up on a wall, we like to see it removed within 48 hours,” he said. “They'll get discouraged, they'll get the message and they'll move on.”
Reach reporter Dustin Brown by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 154.
