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ssn156357453 t1_j1jpnwi wrote

Reply to comment by Wowzlul in Development v. Historical Preservation? 14 Gay Street in Greenwich Village by BarbaraJames_75

People like you don’t realize how much the character of old holdings adds to your feeling in that environment

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Dracomarine t1_j1jvs50 wrote

People like you don't understand that we need godamn housing in this city.

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Rarablue0 t1_j1le30i wrote

There are so many more impactful places you could upzone. Queens, as the person you were replying to stated, has huge swaths dedicated to single family homes. Why are you getting so butthurt over these two small buildings and not the miles of R1 zoning in those areas? Same can be said for BX and SI.

Also, there is no realistic amount of housing that could be built in the next 20 years to adequately satiate global demand for units here. The government essentially subsidizes the rent for over 1 million units as a means of keeping blue collar workers in the city and to avoid the absolute shitshow forcing these people out would become if rent stabilization were repealed.

I’ve lived here 30+ years. I know it’s expensive as fuck, tearing down two landmark buildings will not make it cheaper for you. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

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Dracomarine t1_j1ma44o wrote

This city has risen as far as it has because of the willingness to change and adapt to new circumstances. People make the city, not buildings. Get out of here with the nonsense that we couldnt build enough. Since when has new york had that attitude(oh wait, since nimby's gained power). Until Queens gets good rail service, it isnt an option for deep development.

This city used to build things. What the hell happened?

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Rarablue0 t1_j1mjbl3 wrote

My guy, the period you’re referring to was very well known for the existence of incredibly dense tenements. Much more so than today and with very little oversight into safety standards. The quality of life for individuals living in such buildings was quite low and their homes, in many instances, were basically firetraps.

There was more development going on but also a lot more disease, death, and suffering. This changed a bit after 1916 with the intro of the city’s zoning ordinances (the first of it’s kind in the country) and much more significantly in 61’ when the resolution was revisited and EXTENSIVELY updated. Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) established near there after (65’) and the rest, as they say, is history.

Im simply pointing out to you the reality of the situation. If you really wanted to make a dent in housing costs here, you’d upzone Queens immediately. I doubt even that would make a significant difference unless done very aggressively which would open up an entirely different can of worms.

And I don’t really appreciate your attitude towards me, calling me a NIMBY and such. I have been an advocate for affordable housing my entire life, my family dealt with tough times when I was growing up because of the excessive raising rents here. I worked as a city planner for 5 years and have a pretty good idea of how the development process works.

Regardless, Merry Christmas.

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Dracomarine t1_j1mredb wrote

I mean, there is a middle ground between tennements and homelessness but I am done with this debate. The city needs housing and this nimbyism crap needs to end. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. Just a metter of how long we are going to delay

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kapuasuite t1_j1q503i wrote

Putting a bunch of people on the fringes of the city, where there’s limited mass transit, rather than Manhattan and the inner parts of Brooklyn and Queens, seems like a colossal mistake.

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Wowzlul t1_j1rdft9 wrote

It's not a colossal mistake when you've got yours and wanna preserve your neighborhood character at the expense of the majority.

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ssn156357453 t1_j1kpc1q wrote

Why can’t we tear down the single family homes in ozone first, then the historic townhomes in Greenwich village?

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Rarablue0 t1_j1legel wrote

Agreed. If any borough needs to be upzoned, it’s Queens.

You’ll get the same complaints from them though. I know many Queens natives who were born and raised there who complain nonstop at the sight of any new development. Same way I feel about these landmark buildings in the village.

It’s basically human nature to not want your childhood home/neighborhood to change. Unfortunately it’s a part of life, but if it’s gonna happen let’s at least start where it will actually make a small dent (Queens) rather than no dent at all (these two landmark buildings)

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Wowzlul t1_j1ot2p1 wrote

> Why can’t we tear down the single family homes in ozone first

Because Ozone doesn't have the same access to world-class transportation and commercial districts holding metric fucktons of jobs and opportunity?

Wtf is this thread? It's like a lobbying group put it up

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ssn156357453 t1_j1p4em2 wrote

Not true. A,J,Z, and E trains all go to the general area. And ozone is still in the city proper-it’s not like some far out suburb.

Queens has a Manhattan-sized region of inefficient housing. Why not start fixing that first before we start destroying old apartments and townhouses which have a smaller footprint and are historic.

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Wowzlul t1_j1re778 wrote

Honest question. Have you ever been to Ozone Park? Do you know what it's like getting around in that part of the city compared to Manhattan? What's out there in terms of culture? What it's like taking the bus from strip-mall to strip-mall for your daily comings and goings? The long train ride to Manhattan to get to work?

Not saying that we shouldn't be striving to densify and improve Ozone. Of course we should. But Greenwich Village is situated in such a superior location as concerns jobs, amenities, and transportation - the three things that lift people out of poverty and allow for thriving communities - that it seems preposterous to wall it off from the same process of upzoning and redevelopment that you admit must take place in the outer boroughs.

There's a place for historic preservation. We all know the history of Robert Moses, Penn Station, the LOMEX, urban renewal gone too far. It's all very well known to anyone discussing these topics. But there's a balance to these things, and in the decades since then we have swung so wildly far in the other direction that I gotta admit that preserving every single historic building in the Village so some affluent boomer artists can live out their last days is very low on my priority list.

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ssn156357453 t1_j1riknl wrote

Yes i have. And I don't just mean ozone. I mean flushing, jackson heights, maspeth, corona, elmhurst, forest hills...

And no one ever suggest destroying these communities when they are so inefficient. And all of these neighborhoods have parts very accessible to manhattan by train. It's also wrong to think that everyone would be taking the subway to commute or would be trying to get to Manhattan.

Upzoning the Greenwich village doesn't allow for affordable housing. It creates more expensive housing. This wouldn't be the case in corona.

Historic preservation shouldn't just apply to monuments or important train terminals–this was clear to Jane Jacobs.

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Wowzlul t1_j1rjgn5 wrote

I'm not gonna respond to most of your comment because I feel like we've both made our points on those topics by now.

But there is one argument in here that drives me nuts:

> Upzoning the Greenwich village doesn't allow for affordable housing. It creates more expensive housing.

This has to be the most dangerous slogan to come out of the last twenty years. In our current economic reality, you have to build more units, of all types, in order to have a chance at driving rents down.

Yes it's "supply side." Yes it's "trickle down." But it works, at least enough to make a dent in the problem. Up-market units will house high income people, making fewer of them compete with lower-income people for older, less desirable apartments.

Is it perfect? No. Is it going to result in a completely fair and just world where everyone has low rent and can live wherever they want? No. Is it better than our current plan of building absolutely nothing new anywhere near anything? Hell yes.

The cold hard truth is that in our current reality if you stop building new cars then used cars are going to become astronomically expensive. A similar logic applies here unfortunately.

I really don't think we have a choice in the matter. At least, not if we're gonna have any hope of nyc not going the way of San Francisco: a NIMBY retirement community for people who got in when the getting was good and have locked the gates behind them.

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ssn156357453 t1_j1rkeyq wrote

at basic level greenwich village is pretty. most of queens is ugly. Rather destroy ugly that pretty neighborhoods.

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