Flushing Plans For Extreme Makeover

[Cotuit]

Flushing Plans For Extreme Makeover

By Christa Weber

More than 100 business owners and community members congregated at Flushing Town Hall last week to catch an early glimpse at the proposed Flushing makeover as presented by Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff. The plan focuses on three key areas: Downtown Flushing, the Flushing River waterfront and Willets Point. Months of study went into the plan, which grew out of proposals that premiered a year ago at a two-day workshop also held at Flushing Town Hall.

"We

[Cotuit]

[Scott]

Interesting article, I would suppose Flushing must have been an actual town for years before NYC annexed all of Queens County.

[Cotuit]

Yup, a lot of the neighbourhoods in Queens were originally towns of Queens County before annexation. Flushing is one of the older towns. Being that it is so old, it is still quite distinct that it was once it's own town, much like it is quite clear that Brooklyn was once an independent city. Until recently it was a predominately Irish area, now it is predominately Chinese, and becoming more and more so as rents skyrocket in Manhattan's Chinatown. A lot of the Chinese in Boston who regularly visit NYCs Chinatown, now skip it and head straight to Flushing.

Flushing is the home to The Mets Shea Stadium (and Bill Bukner's famous between the legs act), Arthur Ashe Stadium (home of the US Open), and it was the host of NYCs two Worlds Fairs. Flushing is famous for being home of TVs 'The Nanny' and the Simpons World Trade Centre episode where Homer sees a 'Flushing Meadows' bus and fantasizes of a field of toilets (he had to pee at the time).

I lived in Flushing before I moved to Providence, and I'd put downtown Flushing in a tie with Jamaica, for skankiest place in Queens. The place is a cesspool, the sidewalks are literally sticky, and during the summer it smells like a dump (the condition of the Flushing River does not help either). The place is desperate for an extreme makeover. Fortunately it has really good bones. It's a transportation nexus, with LIRR, the 7 subway line, and buses from Nassau County all converging smack in the middle of it. So it has massive foot traffic, but it's such a mess that people simply rush from where they came from to where they are going to. If they make it over right, it could become a destination in itself.

[G W North]

It's disappointing to hear that it's a "cesspool". It looks so incredibly urban. Are there any other parts of Queens as "downtownish" as Flushing.

[Cotuit]

Jamaica has a very distinct downtown, but like Flushing, it's a cesspool. The city and state are very eager to improve Jamaica however. It is a transportation nexus for buses in Queens, the LIRR, and Nassau County buses making connections to the LIRR and the subway (if you look at a Queens bus map, you'll see Jamaica and Flushing as the 2 main hubs).

Kennedy Airports new AirTrain terminates in downtown Jamaica to make connections to the subway and LIRR. This in effect makes Jamaica a Gateway to NYC itself. That being so, it's important to the city and state to clean the place up. Of course this means gentrification and pricing out long time residents.

Jamaica and Flushing are the two areas that really have a small city feel. Though there are other hubs in Queens that have a sense of place much like a downtown. Woodside is actually a quite nice area. Astoria is becoming quite hot as people are priced out of areas of Brooklyn such as Park Slope and DUMBO.

A lot of Queens is developed linearly. There are a lot of main roads crossing the borough that are lines of urbaninty going from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, with more resdiential areas away from the main road.

[Cotuit]

Is That English? Flushing Pols Will Find Out

By James Fanelli

With its myriad Asian restaurants and its equally diverse vendors and merchants, the bustling business section of Flushing along Northern Boulevard can be a shoppers