Community Board 6 Public Hearing

for the Disposition of City Owned Land

(A Rockaway beach Line Property)

joseph tiraco

          A city bureaucrat will explain how the community benefits by the sale of the Rockaway Beach Line railroad property located at Metropolitan Avenue and Alderton Street to a local gas station owner.

           Former mayor, Giuliani, early in his first term, announced the city would sell the Rockaway Beach Line right-of-way which traverses Western Queens north to south, a block or so east of Woodhaven-Crossbay Boulevard, running from Queens Boulevard to Rockaway Beach. The city’s intention at the time was to sell the railroad property to developer Bruce Ratner for his proposed Metropolitan Avenue shopping mall development, which Home Depot was to anchor. The mayor reconsidered prior to his reelection, and the railroad property remained intact. A 24 hour Home Depot and a Sports Authority were built, and as predicted, traffic in the area increased dramatically, at times leaving neighborhood streets tied up in gridlock.

          A succession of New York City mayors over the past 50 years have recognized the importance of the long thin ribbon running through Western Queens, and held onto this railroad right-of-way despite the city’s never-ending series of budget shortfalls. Who was hungrier then Mayor Kotch, or more mercenary then Mayor Giuliani? Yet, the Rockaway Beach Line right-of-way was passed completely intact to Mayor Bloomberg.

          The city’s divestment of the Rockaway Beach Line right-of-way may signal the Bloomberg administration’s eagerness to breakup the furniture, and sell off properties long considered strategically vital to the city’s future. It may also indicate a new round of shopping mall proposals for Metropolitan Avenue, and yet even greater traffic snarls looming in the community’s future.

          This particular parcel is an interesting choice to begin the city’s breakup of the railroad right-of-way. Located on the north side of Metropolitan Avenue, and the west side of the track bed, the future Metropolitan Avenue, Forest Hills station would almost certainly be constructed on this property. The other choice would be to build a station on the south side of Metropolitan Avenue. (The original Rockaway Beach Line Forest Hills station was on the north side.) But the property south of Metropolitan is in the hands of developers, and it will cost the city from ten to a hundred times more then what they’re selling the old station site for, to buy another parcel on the opposite side of the street for a new station. Of course, the city could always evict the Forest Hills Volunteer Ambulance Corps from their permanent home at Metropolitan Avenue on the east side of the track bed. But this heroic group has earned their place of honor, and to hassle them is unthinkable. Unless the city can show that the gas station owner they want to sell this strategically valuable piece of property to has performed some public service equal to the contribution of the Forest Hills Volunteer Ambulance Corps, then the decision on where to build the Forest Hills station is a no-brainier; or the city’s bureaucratic standard for meritorious public service has become so vitiated as to be meaningless.

          Woodhaven-Crossbay Boulevard and the Van Wyck Expressway are the only contiguous north-south thoroughfares in Western Queens. In order to travel from the north part of the borough to the south part of the borough, one of these two thoroughfares must be used. North-south mass transit is non existent and public conveyance is by bus, adding to rush hour traffic snarls on these two over saturated roadways. Forty years ago, a huge bureaucratic blunder severed the Rockaway Beach Line and ended north-south mass transit for Western Queens. The city literally told a half-million commuters in Western Queens to take a hike and created the current two-fare zone along the Woodhaven-Crossbay corridor. Hence, the murderous traffic upsurge was born, and will only grow worse until north-south mass transit is restored - that means, until the Rockaway Beach Line is reopened. As long as the railroad property remains intact, the task merely awaits an energetic Mayor to accomplish; which brings us back to the subject of this short work, the next meeting of Community Board #6.

          Watch as Mayor Bloomberg chips away at one of the most valuable public assets in the City of New York, and ebbs away the future of Queens county.

The author can be reached by email, tiraco@rockawaybeachline.org