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The West Side Stadium: No Arena for Good Planning


The fixation with putting a football stadium on the west side of Manhattan is blocking good planning – for the Olympics and for the neighborhood.

After eight years of trying, Rudy Giuliani hung up his mayor’s cap without getting a stadium for the Yankees on the West Side of Manhattan. Michael Bloomberg came in to office and had the good sense to see that the numbers just didn’t add up. But then Bloomberg turned the Yankee dream into a Jets nightmare. And now, unless he has the good sense to can this latest stadium idea Bloomberg may well kill the city’s chances of getting the 2012 Olympics, undermine his own grand plans for office development on Manhattan’s west side, and end up a one-term mayor.

The Jets would like to transplant their turf from the Meadowlands to Manhattan mainly so they can have an arena with many more expensive box seats that they can market to corporate clients. This is no doubt a good business move for the Jets. But independent economists unanimously agree about two things. First, downtown stadiums don’t get built without huge public subsidies. Secondly, they don’t bring a lot of other business into cities. The Jets would foot only a fraction of the construction costs and the gains from their corporate subscribers won’t spill over into the neighborhood. After all, the Jets play only eight home games a year.

Since most New Yorkers who have looked at the stadium plans understood these painful truths, the city has now exorcised the term "stadium" from their vocabulary. They now call it a "multi-use facility" that would also serve the Jacob Javits Convention Center. The problem is it is not clear the Javits either needs or really wants a piece of a stadium whose goal posts have to be taken down, at considerable expense, after the last touchdown. A stadium is still a stadium.

The Plans for Olympics 2012

What is deceptive is that the brutish-looking west side stadium plan is wrapped up a much more attractive package -- the city’s plan for the 2012 Olympics bid. If you take the stadium out of the west side of Manhattan and put it across the river in Queens, the Olympics plan is a masterful and compelling piece of urban and environmental planning. It concentrates almost all its venues within a six mile radius and uses the city’s mass transit system to move spectators and athletes, thus avoiding the use of inefficient gas-guzzling vehicles. The plan would apply much-needed capital money to the building and restoration of parks on the Brooklyn and Queens waterfronts and leave an open space legacy that will last far beyond 2012. Perhaps its greatest merit is that, unlike so many other Olympics plans (Atlanta was one of the worst), it does not displace residents and businesses. While its authors may have emulated Robert Moses by cooking up their scheme without public input, the plan reflects a sensitivity to the critique of the Moses legacy of planning by bulldozer.

The Olympics plan would string all the Olympic facilities along two axes, one going north and south from the Bronx to Staten Island and the other going east and west from the Meadowlands to the Nassau Coliseum. The axes converge in Long Island City. By placing the geographic center of the New York City Olympics in Queens, the plan will give a boost to the majority of New Yorkers who constantly live under the pale of the media mythology that New York City begins and ends in Manhattan. Unfortunately, by putting the stadium, as well as the broadcasting and media centers, on the west side of Manhattan, the center of the Olympic "X" gets shifted from Queens to Manhattan.

A "secret" memo by staffer Christopher Glaisek at Olympics 2012 that was recently leaked to the press presents a compelling argument that the center of the Olympics "X" should be in Queens and not Manhattan. A temporary retrofit of Shea Stadium would be infinitely cheaper, and would require no major public approvals or gigantic infrastructure investments. Already three major Olympics venues are planned for Flushing Meadows/Corona Park, right next to Shea. The International Broadcasting Center and Media Village, now planned for Manhattan’s west side, could easily be located in close proximity to Shea.

Of course, the Olympics planners should still look at the potential impact of the Olympics on the surrounding Queens neighborhoods. For example, Shea Stadium and the U.S. Tennis Center right next to it now operate like little enclaves that bring crowds in and out with little interaction with the neighborhoods of Corona and Flushing. The Olympics could just as easily turn its back on these neighborhoods and leave them nothing of value after the last athletes go home.

If the city decides to keep the stadium in Manhattan, they could very well undermine whatever chances are left for winning the 2012 Olympic bid. They face the formidable opposition of most local civic groups and elected officials, and likelihood of a devastating lawsuit. On the other hand, if the city decided now to put the stadium in Queens (and George Bush gets defeated in the next election) other countries represented on the International Olympics Committee may well vote for New York City.

The West Midtown Plan: Robert Moses at His Worst

The proposed stadium is a central part of the city’s monumental plan for office expansion on the west side of Manhattan. It’s so central the city named its plan the Hudson Yards Plan– referring to the rail yards over which the stadium would be built. This is what happens when a bad idea based on the fanciful dreams of a greedy corporation is the foundation for a plan that would redevelop an entire neighborhood. This is truly Robert Moses at his worst, without the parks and low-income housing that Moses left behind, only a few shrubs and lots of office towers and luxury high-rises.

The city and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority are now doing an environmental impact study to look at two things: first, the potential effects of zoning changes they hope to introduce next year; and secondly, extension of the #7 subway line, proposed to begin construction no later than 2005, when the final decision on the site of the 2012 Olympics will be made.

Here’s what’s wrong with this mega-plan:

• It would create a huge north-south wall of office and residential buildings, and a northward expansion of the Javits Center, cutting off the rest of the neighborhood from the waterfront.

• It requires building the most expensive mile of subway in the world – possibly $3 billion. This will divert funds from the Second Avenue subway and prove a net loser if the projected office development lags.

• It undermines the protections of two special zoning districts, the Special Garment Center District and Clinton Special District, zoning havens for small-scale manufacturers and affordable housing.

• It is based on overly optimistic projections of the amount of future office space that would be attracted to midtown.

• There’s no financial plan that shows how all of this makes economic sense or that it won’t contribute to a future fiscal crisis.

• It has virtually no community support. Local civic groups, elected officials and the community board are all against it.

The Community Plan

There is a sensible alternative. The Hells Kitchen Neighborhood Association (HKNA) has an alternative plan that deals with most of these problems. It is the result of many consultations involving residents, property owners, and the community board. It also has a bit of grandeur and plenty of development opportunities. But it is tempered by a more reasoned expectation of future development.

The plan has in mind a real full-time community, not another downtown office district that turns into a cemetery after the three-piece suits get back on the buses. It’s curious that the Bloomberg plan is such a throwback to the dull old downtown development model while at the same time he’s had the good sense to acknowledge the declining prospects for an office-only downtown in lower Manhattan.

The neighborhood plan would put a mixture of uses on the platform to be built on the Hudson Rail Yards. It allows space for the expansion south of the Javits Center and would put commercial and residential uses on the site. Most importantly it makes a big dent in the monstrous wall that a northward Javits expansion would create. Community residents all over the city want improved public access to the waterfront. A giant stadium will give that access only to the box-holders.

For background and major articles on the stadium and west side, see the Web site, HellsKitchen.net. Tom Angotti is Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning at Hunter College, City University of NY, editor of Planners Network Magazine, and a member of the Task Force on Community-based Planning.

Letitia James, who succeeds the assassinated James Davis in the City Council


Letitia James, who succeeds James Davis on the City Council representing district 35, which covers Clinton Hill, Prospect Heights, and Fort Greene, has a long history of supporting community development. Even before she officially took office, she was able to score two victories for affordable housing, including a promise by Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Jerilyn Perine to support the transformation of "The Brig," a former prison on Flushing Avenue, into an apartment building.

But James also faces a significant challenge: how do deal with " development, development, development," as Jennifer Gerend, executive director of the Myrtle Avenue Revitalization Project, puts it. A series of major developments are taking place throughout the district. "Tish's challenge will be to balance development interests and the many differing community viewpoints on proposed development, rezoning, and preservation," says Gerend. "Many residents are excited about some amenities to be added from the major developments, but still want to preserve the local, neighborhood feel of the Fort Greene/Clinton Hill community. We basically want to have it all."

James says that she is not against development, but that it must meet the needs of her constituents. Any major housing development, she says, must provide "a fair share of housing for people at the community median income, or at least the [New York] City median," rather than the median for the metropolitan area (including Nassau & Westchester Counties), which is far higher. In addition, "we've got double-digit unemployment" in the public housing developments in the district, so developers must provide skills-training as well as jobs.

To achieve these goals, James hopes to use "project labor agreements," like one that she helped to negotiate for the Tappan Zee Bridge, that require unionized construction with apprenticeship programs for local residents. Another idea that James discussed during the campaign is negotiating with developers to sign "community benefits agreements," legal documents that stipulate how the development will benefit the community, in areas including jobs, community services, environmental improvement, and affordable housing Community benefits agreements have been used increasingly by community organizations and unions, especially in California.

But Steve Aronson of the Pratt Area Community Council wonders whether, even with these types of agreements, there really is "room for everyone." Will developers - especially Brooklyn mega-developer Bruce Ratner, who is involved in most of the major development projects - really be forced to make significant concessions, or will they basically get what they want, in exchange for a few goodies they would have provided anyway? And how will these agreements, which are notoriously hard to monitor, be maintained and enforced.

These questions will be answered in a multitude of development projects moving forward in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill:

Downtown Brooklyn Rezoning: Within the next few weeks, the Department of City Planning will certify its proposal to rezone downtown Brooklyn, in order to encourage the development of additional high-rise office, residential, and educational towers. Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff argues that New York City needs space for many more office jobs to remain competitive in the decades to come. While many community members would welcome more jobs and housing in downtown Brooklyn, some fear the additional traffic. Others wonder what steps will be taken to ensure that good jobs are truly accessible to local residents, that the housing is affordable to local families, and that new schools are created that will not only meet the needs of the new families but provide better options for local kids.

BAM Cultural District: As reported in this column in April, negotiations are underway between the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) Local Development Corporation and the Coalition of Concerned Citizens, over the corporation's $700 million plan to create a cultural district, several pieces of which are already underway James hopes that the negotiations will lead to an agreement, so that the cultural district can move forward in a way that is satisfactory to the Coalition of Concerned Citizens, which fears that new housing, commercial, and cultural development will price out local residents and change the character of the community.

High-rise infill development: The Fort Greene Association and the Clinton Hill Society and others are gearing up to push for expansions of the existing historic districts, and perhaps also for "contextual zoning" that would provide height limits, in order to block high-rise infill development projects taking place "as of right." Residents recently lost a battle to prevent the development of a 15-story residential building, adjacent to four-story brownstones, on Greene Avenue and Carlton Place.

Atlantic Center: Construction is nearly complete on the last major commercial component of the Atlantic Center Mall - which developers, residents, and the city have been fighting over for more than 50 years. Over the next year, on the site where several generations of Brooklynites once hoped the new Dodger Stadium would rise, there will be several new tenants - Target, Bank of New York and Red Lobster. For this development, developer Ratner received $114 million in "Liberty Bonds" provided by the federal government to New York City - the first project (inside or outside of Manhattan) to use these tax-exempt bonds.

Ratner's Arena: The biggest fight about development is the arena proposed by Bruce Ratner for the New Jersey Nets and the New Jersey Devils, which would be built over the Long Island Rail Road yards across from the Atlantic Center mall. Ratner's $500 million proposal, which would be designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, also includes commercial stores and 5,500 units of housing. The development has the support of Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who has long been angling for a professional basketball team in Brooklyn.

But James, along with Assemblyman Roger Green and State Senator Velmanette Montgomery, opposes the project, on the grounds that it would create too much traffic and congestion. Opponents also include the Prospect Heights Action Coalition, which was created last year when residents came together in an attempt to block the siting of a homeless shelter in their community. James says that any stadium in Brooklyn should be built in the Navy Yard, perhaps as part of the city's plans for the Olympics.

Other community development advocates believe that the proposed site - at the crossroads of almost every subway train (the third-busiest hub in the city) and the Long Island Rail Road - could be a good location for the arena, but only if a "community benefits agreement" provided for good, unionized jobs for Brooklyn residents, and for more than 1,000 units of affordable housing.

Ratner recently submitted the highest bid to purchase the Nets, $275 million, $25 million more than the bid that included U.S. Senator Jon Corzine. But the bidding for the team - like the bidding for the future of the neighborhood - has only just begun.

Brad Lander is the director of the Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development .

Nightclub Act II


When he was New York City's special narcotics prosecutor, Robert Silbering helped bring down high-profile nightclub impresario Peter Gatien, sending him to jail and shuttering his Manhattan club, Limelight - just the most notorious of dozens of clubs, bars and lounges that were fined, padlocked, shut down, or simply went out of business because of the crackdown, mostly because of illegal drugs.

Now, Limelight is back, and so is Silbering, though Limelight is not Limelight anymore -- and neither, in a sense, is Silbering.

In September, the building in Chelsea (once a church) that housed Limelight, reopened as another nightclub, Avalon -- the first of three enormous new clubs slated to open this fall on sites of previous disrepute. And Silbering was there -- as an employee. He offers advice to the new owners as a paid consultant.

"In the past," Silbering said, "owners waited and reacted to bad publicity and police pressure." Now, he says, they are being advised to demonstrate, through aggressive self-policing and stringent door policies, "that they are serious about keeping drugs out of their clubs."

"Times have changed," said John Blair, a co-owner of Avalon.

NEW YORK IS ITS NIGHTLIFE

Nightlife has been a celebrated draw of New York City for at least a century; to many people, it is what makes New York New York. More than 24 million people visit New York City's nightclubs every year, which exceeds the attendance of Broadway theaters, city sports teams, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Empire State Building all combined, according to a report sponsored by the New York Nightlife Association. Nightclubs are said to contribute $2.9 billion to the city's economy and provide more than 27,000 jobs.

But for almost as long , crowded nightclubs have been the source of persistent aggravation for police, producing a litany of complaints, from displays of drunken disorderly conduct to public urination, to more serious assaults, brawls, stabbings, and shootings. In the 1990s, law enforcement officials expressed alarm about the widespread use and distribution in the clubs of "designer drugs" such as eXstasy, Special-K (the animal tranquilizer Ketamine), and crystal methamphetamine. (See accompanying article on crystal).

At the same time, residents became increasingly hostile towards clubs in their neighborhoods because of the noise, and the litter, the thousands of drunk young people spilling onto darkened city streets in the middle of the night - and the seeming indifference of the club owners to resident complaints.

"They felt they could do as they damn well pleased and it was nobody's business," recalled Cheryl Kupper, a member of community board 4, which covers Chelsea, home to more large clubs than any other area and holding more than 75 percent of the total cabaret licenses issued in the entire city.

It should be no surprise then, that, in 1997 Mayor Rudolph Giuliani created what he called the Nightclub Enforcement Task Force, to launch a quality of life campaign against the clubs.

The mayor revived enforcement of the cabaret laws, which requires a hard-to-get cabaret license for any establishment that allows dancing. As Julia Vitullo Martin explained on Gotham Gazette: "Passed in 1926 to regulate (some historians say to suppress) jazz in Harlem, the cabaret laws targeted the 'social mixing' that seemed to accompany jazz, says NYU Professor of Law Paul Chevigny, author of Gigs: Jazz and the Cabaret Laws in New York City."

For a time in the late 1990s, a campaign was launched called Operation CycleCheck, designed to discourage motorcyclists from patronizing bars in Chelsea, Greenwich Village and SoHo, as a direct result of noise complaints.

Armed with an arsenal of legal weapons, armies of inspectors, investigators and lawyers padlocked one club after another.

Under investigation for drug activity for some time, Twilo, on West 27th Street, was eventually forced to turn over its cabaret license. Without a cabaret license a large nightclub is essentially out of business.

A spate of high-profile incidents had hastened that club's demise, including a patron's overdose that sparked an unsuccessful lawsuit brought by the city in 1998 and a separate incident where a club-goer collapsed on the dance floor and died.

Twilo was not alone. Tunnel, Coney Island High, Baby Jupiter, Hogs & Heifers, the Palladium, Rivertown Lounge, all went under.

Some blamed the owners themselves, for refusing to address the problems emanating from their clubs, and failing to cooperate with the authorities. Others said the police overreacted.

COME-BACK

It was just a matter of time before the clubs made a comeback. After all, with $20 cover charges and exorbitantly priced drinks, club owners can rake in millions of dollars every year.

"There are more clubs, more different kinds of clubs, and they are crowded night after night, no matter what the policies are," said James Goll, a publicist who has been busy lately with the opening of new clubs this year, such as rap impressario Jay Z's 40/40.

Avalon, though massive at 1,650 square-feet, will be dwarfed by at least two other openings this month.

Crobar, slated to open on West 28th Street -- its co-owner used to own such hot clubs as Danceteria, Palladium and Area -- will have room for a staggering 2,500 people and include three separate dance spaces and three smaller rooms, including a main room with 60-foot high ceilings. Rumors are circulating that both a documentary and "The Restaurant"-style reality TV show are in the works.

Equally mammoth is Spirit, also scheduled to open this month in the same West 27th St. location formerly occupied by Twilo.

The most noticeable difference this time around will be the absence of smoky rooms, thanks to the local ban on smoking. But severe new federal legislation directly aimed at curbing drug use in nightclub is also giving the new club owners plenty of incentive to prevent any drug trafficking in their clubs.

On April 10 of this year, Congress passed the "Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act (a.k.a. the "Rave Act")" as a rider attached to the child abduction bill known as the Amber Alert bill sponsored by Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE).

The "Rave" Act, which has no apparent relevance to child abductions, now allows the federal government to prosecute owners and promoters for their customers' drug offenses, even if it involves a single transaction, rather than a pattern.

Penalties include six-figure fines and jail sentences of up to twenty years for owners and promoters.

Locally, a bill was introduced in the City Council last week that would allow off-duty police officers to work these kinds of establishments in uniform.

According to Intro 478-A, introduced in the Public Safety Committee by City Councilmember David Yassky, the police department would expand the paid detail unit to cover establishments that sell alcohol. There are currently only 200 officers assigned to that unit who are permitted to wear their uniforms off-duty to patrol major private events.

Representatives for the police department, however, immediately criticized the bill, blasting it for the liability risk it would pose the city.

In the meantime, the owners both of Avalon and Spirit hired their predecessors' nemesis, Robert Silbering, to signal their seriousness . Silbering regularly sends private undercover investigators into Avalon to keep an eye on both clubgoers and staff alike.

"We meet with the Drug Enforcement Agency," said John Blair of Avalon, "we hold classes for our employees on what to look for, and we speak regularly with the local community board."

Kupper from community board 4 concedes they are making an effort. "They are very persuasive and do seem sincere and try to address complaints, or at least listen to them," she said. But, she added, "the same problems still exist, to varying degrees and depending on the club."

HERE TO STAY?

So, will the memory of the old crackdown, the new policies, and the new club attitudes, drive drugs out of the scene?

Hardly.

If anything, drug dealers have gone high-tech. Where they were once limited to street corners and bathrooms, and needed thriving drug-marts like the Limelight's bathroom to peddle eXstasy at upwards of $30 a pill, they have since graduated to beepers and, more recently, cell phones.

Sure, they would like to be inside the clubs, but they no longer have to be. They no longer need their customers to come to them; they can come to their customers. Undeniably, drug use will remain an integral part of club culture.

Club owners can probably keep the drug dealers out. But can they keep their drug-using patrons out?

*****

Related Articles:

• The 'Tina' Habit - A look at crystal methamphetamine, or tina, a drug popular with club goers.

• Books About NYC Nightlife

• Disco Despair - An Issue of the Week from May, 2001 outlining in more detail the problems and complaints -- and what residents can do about it.

 



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