Agitating for Affordable… Parking?
New York City Councilman Tony Avella hearts parking lots.
New Yorkers never fail to set my eyes rolling. Their reverse-provincial, insulated expectations of what life is and more importantly, what the government should do for them, just keeps on amusing. Take this Queens Ledger (or is it the Brooklyn Downtown Star?) article about Graham Avenue business owners complaining that the City is getting rid of a public parking lot so that affordable housing can be built on it. Mind you, there will still be parking, there will just be less of it and it won’t be damn near free.
Ahmed Khan, owner of Sneaker Spot, said customers will not come if they have to park ten blocks away. “If you don’t give [them] parking in front of [or] behind the store, nobody shops.”
The Sneaker Spot? We’re quickly disabused of the idea that this might be a strip of bafflingly expensive vintage clothing boutiques and raw vegan restaurants. Graham Avenue isn’t luxurious, it’s a dump — so it’s not the wealthy driving these cars. No, in North Brooklyn, it’s the so-called poor who drive. Consider that they are the ones who will (supposedly) benefit from this affordable housing development, and this starts to become a real head-scratcher. Just a thought, but, maybe if these families got rid of their 2 or 3 cars per household, they could afford market rent like the rest of us. Ever taken a walk or a bike ride through the projects? The parking lots and side streets are full of shiny new cars. For the record, the very few “hipster” “trustfunders” (derogatory terms for stylish, employed young white people) I know who have cars drive shitbox beaters. But I digress.
Apparently, affordable housing isn’t enough, this city now needs affordable parking for the minority of residents who drive. And allegedly, these doubtlessly fat, lazy ass people who won’t walk a few blocks are who keep the merchants of Graham Avenue in business.
[City] councilman [Tony Avella] remarked that if a commercial area becomes blighted, it affects the rest of the neighborhood. “If stores can’t make it and you start to close, residential areas are affected because now there’s no place to shop.”
His argument is that Graham Avenue will, uh, become blighted, and presumably that this will make the surrounding, uh, pristine residential areas less desireable. Hey Councilman, you ever heard of gentrification? There aren’t exactly a lot of downward pressures on Brooklyn real estate these days. Remember the affordable housing scheme that was the excuse for you coming to East Williamsburg to pander to voters and make it look like you’re doing something valuable? After all, it’s the only reason you care about — and likely even know the existence of — some scrap of city-owned asphalt. Get your head out of the 1970s. What’s next, tax breaks for fried chicken joints and stores that sell $8 pairs of jeans on the sidewalk?
Every other thriving retail strip in Brooklyn, no matter what economic segment it serves, does just fine without city-owned parking lots, and in some cases without any parking at all. What’s so special about Graham Avenue?
part of me is like, well if this part of town is as blighted as it sounds, lettem have their ‘affordable commercial parking lot’ (boy does that sound like somebody is getting screwed).
why is Avella even getting involved? this is not his turf, does he have relatives in the sneaker business or something? i’m all for small business success, but priorities this out of whack make it impossible to support them. okay, maybe if this strip was in the flatlands or something, but (correct me if i’m wrong) isn’t the disputed area bordered by the Flushing JM station (and the L train just a couple blocks off the north end)?
refusing nearby public transportation for personal vehicles on crowded street to buy shoes … it’s crazy.
separately, the car thing is out of control. if the city council wants to do something useful they should sponsor a propaganda campaign to get people to stop buying cars and use public transportation more often. sadly, they’re too busy banning cellphones in movie theaters.
one thing kind of unique to bushwick is that people make carports in front of their homes. viola an instant driveway (although sometimes not legal).
makes you wonder how people afford those fancy cars, they are always new, perfectly cleaned. who can even afford the cost of insurance it the city.
‘who can even afford the cost of insurance in the city’
Well, if our situation from a few years ago is any indication, a lot of ‘insured’ cars in our hood are basically scams.
A few years back a minivan of some sorts hit our car, then hit another car in front of us and flipped over in the middle of the street. One guy ran away, the other, DRUNK driver was found to be illegal. The plates were from Pennsylvania and the insurance was under someone whom the insurance company could not locate. Convienent for them. It was declared fraud. Long and short, I see alot of Penn plates and I don’t trust the lot of them.
not surprised, but also a lot of people paying high insurance here just for the luxury of having a hoopty car.
Wow, out of all the outrageously borderline racist stuff you’ve posted on this blog, this one has to be the worst yet.
2-3 cars per family? Where are you getting that statistic from? Your anecdotal observation of the parking lots in the “projects” are not scientific enough to base such a theory on. And as you surely know, many housing projects accept those of middle class, or lower middle income as part of diversification.
Second of all, who appointed you judge and jury of what people choose to spend their money on? Did you go through the lot and write down make and model and know, with certainty, that every car was the latest year and model? Again, sample size? Just because people care for their posessions, keep them clean and washed, does not make them millionaires, unworthy of public housing, or a target for your blog.
I won’t even touch the “a lot of insured cars in our hood are basically scams”. I’m sorry, based on WHAT? *one* incident? I know plenty of middle class white kids in the suburbs who don’t keep their insurance up to date either, or who get a card just so it’s in their wallet if they get pulled over and then never keep up the payments, because they’re spending their cash on booze and whatever else.
There are lots of reasons people choose to have cars. Employment, family situations, pride, personal choice.
“nd allegedly, these doubtlessly fat, lazy ass people who won’t walk a few blocks are who keep the merchants of Graham Avenue in business.”
Wow.
Racist, classist, fat-phobic, judgmental, ageist – you’ve hit them all. This post is so ignorant it barely justifies a response, but after reading these types of things on here time and time again, I could not let this one go.
You are SO sure you know everything about the world, and how everyone should live it. No wonder you don’t fit into your neighborhood with your condescending, critical attitude.
well, many new yorkers have their cars registered in other states to avoid fees and high insurance costs:
reasons for this include employment, family situations, pride, personal choice …
I’m sorry mister juke. You’ve never been on the innenets before? Never heard of anyone emotionally inflating a story for fun? As if I really believe every car in my neighborhood is full of illegal aliens with fake insurance from Pennsyvania. Some? Hell yes. All? don’t be an idiot.
Oh, and ever heard of a concern troll? Cuz you are a fine example. What, just because I didn’t talk about every possible iteration of insurance fraud, and since I dind’t mention white people in the suburbs, my annoyance about cars in my neighborhood equals racismz? Again,. son’t be an idiot and kindly fuck off.
Juke, a lot of the stuff on this blog is anecdotal.
What does commenting about the 2-3 cars per family have to do with race? Is every criticism of people in Bushwick going to be about race? Cuz fuck, almost everyone here is nonwhite, so I guess any criticism is racist.
Nobody has appointed me judge and jury of anything. But if people are blowing money on luxurious transportation, they shouldn’t also be getting free shit from involuntary donors to support such a lifestyle. That’s the part where it’s my business. Even on the part that ISN’T my business, I am still allowed to COMMENT. If you do not like my comments, do not read them.
“Racist, classist, fat-phobic, judgmental, ageist”
Jeez, I wish you had written this earlier in the comment, these terms make my eyes glaze over — I could have skipped the rest of the post altogether. I’m sorry I didn’t say something like “no fat chicks,” then you could have used “misogynist” in there and it would have gotten you more cred in your whiny liberal circles.
Don’t be so sensitive. I know pussying out at any minor slight, real or perceived, is the New York thing to do, but really, it’s just so booooring.
jeremy, how can you be so cruel to those poor sports cars? your a caracist!
“And allegedly, these doubtlessly fat, lazy ass people who won’t walk a few blocks are who keep the merchants of Graham Avenue in business.”
Wow. Shit like this makes me happy I don’t live in Bushwick anymore. I can’t even imagine what would make you jump to these kinds of conclusions with absolutely zero evidence as to the sorts of people who shop on Graham Avenue other than your own assumptions.
and:
“separately, the car thing is out of control. if the city council wants to do something useful they should sponsor a propaganda campaign to get people to stop buying cars and use public transportation more often. sadly, they’re too busy banning cellphones in movie theaters.”
Not that I wouldn’t be thrilled to see fewer cars in the city, but as an L-train commuter, I can’t imagine the train being able to handle any new influxes of people at rush hour. The system simply isn’t prepared to handle it. While I’d love to see a carless city, I definitely don’t want even more mornings where I have to wait for a half-dozen trains to go by before one stops with enough room to squeeze onto.
Jeez, if the city is gonna keep these public parking spaces around, they oughta give space to about 12 zip cars. Think about it. Most of the city uses the trains, if we don’t use the trains, then we might drive, but it would be for less than 100% of the time. So instead of paying for a car 100% of the time, we pay for a car when we need it. It’s cheaper in the real world sense, encourages public transportation but offers an alternative. If we were all pro car around here then why would anyone kick around the idea of a congestion charge? Car sharing is a great answer.
And yes, just because a lot of poor people happen to be minority, saying that poor ghetto folk put too much money into blinging out their cars and not enough of it into their financial future or their childrens’ financial future is only racist by statistics (and I would be willing to bet that if you take a representative cross section of poor folk, look at how many of those people were white, you would see that the tendency for imbalanced pimping of said rides were evenly distributed toward po’ white folks and po’ peoples of colors).
I would agree that the lower class that I know (and I would actually qualify these people as friends and neighbors, just with a totally different set of values), spend a dispoportionate amount of money on things like cars and jewelry, while middle class guys like myself have absolutely zero gold, diamonds, and cars.
I am, however, planning on saving up to make myself a grill by using a retainer + a bedazzler (google it). Then I will out pimp all yall.
Zipcar is an awesome service. I wish they had a spot in Bushwick.
The race issue comes up around here an awful lot. It seems like a lot of people are afraid of the changes Bushwick is experiencing and are lashing out. Since the newer group of people moving to Bushwick are a different color, that has to be the problem! (Since type does not convey sarcasm well, that was sarcasm.) Get over yourselves. You think there are a lot of people here now, wait 15-20 years. NYC is projecting another 1,000,000+ people in the city by then. And guess what, most of them are going to be Asian. Guess who will be replacing many of us?
Juke box, if you know ANYTHING, anything at all about the history of NYC, there is a constant influx of people from different parts of the world, and the city is only so big. Rich and poor, black white hispanic, too many religions to list, have all been dominant in some part of the city at some time, and they are not dominant in that area any longer. NOTHING in New York is constant! Just look at Bushwick, used to be farms, used to be breweries, used to be mostly white, used to be largely italian. Now, dominantly hispanic. Where did they come from? Whom did they replace?
I know these words coming from a middle class white guy who owns his house, they will automatically be deemed racist by someone. That Someone is an idiot.
i still think the real meat of the story is why Tony Avella is showing so much interest in this, when his own district is so far away. guess everything is perfect over in NE queens. Diana Reyna is the rep for this area right? wonder what she thinks?
Wow, Amanda and Juke, now that I looked again, both assumed I was saying that anyone who shops at the shit stores on Graham must be fat and lazy. I’ll chalk it up to poor reading comprehension. You see, the owner of the Sneaker Spot is the one who said all his business would dry up if his customers had to actually walk. I was pointing out how ridiculous that is, and I should add especially ridiculous because his likely customers are planted firmly in the thousands of public housing units that almost completely surround this strip of Graham.
For anyone arguing that doing away with a parking lot on Graham Avenue will “take away business” and cause shops to close, you haven’t been to Graham Avenue. CLEARLY most of the traffic servicing these stores is on foot. Have you ever seen the parking lot to which the this whole debacle is based – half empty most of the time. Look, it’s not only ignorant to think that most Graham Avenue customers are coming to your store by car, it’s EVEN MORE IGNORANT to think that a building housing VERY NEAR your store won’t INCREASE your traffic.
Bottom line: For anyone to argue that an empty parking lot is better to have in your neighborhood than housing – be it from a residential or even a commercial perspective – is out of their mind.
The last comment really hit the nail on the head in describing the parking lot’s poor utilization. What it did not say is the fact that many of its current users are the merchants themselves and their visiting salesmen. Of course, 99% of the area’s shoppers either come by foot or arrive via the many trains and bus lines that serve Graham Ave. so well.
Avella’s participation here stems directly from the fact that the guy has Mayoral pretentions. Thus, as long as he remains under these delusions, expect him to nose his way into many non-district events. (He would be far better served lowering his sights a tad and trying to oust Padavan from his State Senate seat; but that’s getting away from the subject.)
Apropos Jimmy question regarding where the local elected officials stood on the lot contra affordable housing question, I recently read the City Planning Commission’s report that approved the housing. It noted that the local community board – CB1 – supported the proposal by an overwhelming margin. This would not have occurred if Reyna – or someone like Vito Lopez – actively opposed the housing. So on this issue, the merchants clearly stand alone.
This is perhaps the most ignorant blog that I have ever read. 2-3 cars per household? You are truly a disgrace. I have lived in Williamsburg, two blocks from Graham avenue for 20 years and no I don’t live in the projects. Graham avenue wouldn’t be so offensive to you if it was in North Williamsburg intended for new CT yuppies so please stop passing judgment on minority owned business doing something other than selling $4 coffees at starbucks. Although I agree that the neighborhood needs more affordable housing that isn’t dedicated solely to Hadsidic Jews…by the way perhaps you confused the people since I know for a fact that that community averages 4-5 children, the women are on assistance while their husbands work in the diamond district and seeing two or more cars in the driveway of a govt subsidized house is normal…look at that!
“I have lived in Williamsburg, two blocks from Graham avenue for 20 years…”
You don’t say.