“What I said to the administration is: I will not sign off on any fútbol stadium until my vendors are returned to Corona Plaza,” Richards told the gathering, to thunderous applause. “And you can tweet that.”
He added, “Those [street] maps will collect dust for the rest of the year because we will not turn our backs on the working people of our borough.”
The ultimatum adds a new wrinkle to a long-running dispute over Corona Plaza, where the city earlier this year shutdown a popular street vendor market amid complaints about cleanliness, crime and crowding, including from owners of brick-and-mortar stores. Many of the street vendors are migrants doing business without licenses.
The 25,000-seat stadium is the future home of the New York City Football Club, set to debut in 2027.
City officials have said they are still ironing out long-term plans for a market at Corona Plaza, after sanitation police cleared out dozens of vendors in July over ongoing complaints of blocked sidewalks, unsanitary conditions and “illegal vending” too close to storefronts.
Richards said he’s still negotiating with the Adams administration about the number of vendors that will be allowed back at the plaza, which was once home to over 80 stalls. Richards said his “magic number” is 28 vendors, but said he’s still fending off proposals to permanently exclude vendors from the plaza.
“I'm going to use every tool in my toolbox to ensure that they're not left out of the conversation,” Richards said.
He added, “Hell, no. I'm not gonna put this stadium in drive while the vendors are in neutral.”
Richards pointed to what he called “hypocritical” doublespeak by the Adams administration, at once advocating for the Biden administration to expand work authorization for newly arrived migrants, while denying new licenses to long-time vendors in the city.
The number of licenses and permits to legally vend in the city have remained limited for decades. Effort to expand the supply has been mired in years-long delays.
https://gothamist.com/news/nycs-first-soccer-stadium-hits-a-snag-the-queens-borough-president
“It’s been dead,” Queens Borough President Donovan Richards said of the plaza since the vendors’ departure. “It’s taken the life out of the community.”
New York City sanitation police shut down the bustling street vendor market in Corona Plaza in late July, citing ongoing complaints about blocked sidewalks, “dirty conditions,” and “illegal vending” that took place too close to storefronts.
More than 80 vendors — who are mostly women and immigrants without any legal immigration status, according to advocacy groups — lost their livelihoods and income following the crackdown, after helping to revive the neighborhood, which was among the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The market used to lure weekend tourists from across the boroughs and even outside the state. TikTokers advertised the “cheap eats” — dollar tacos! — and home-style cooking from across Latin America. This spring, New York Times food critic Pete Wells pegged the venue as No. 48 on his list of The 100 Best Restaurants in New York City.
“This was one of the most interesting places you could go to explore and see what people in that part of Queens were cooking,” Wells said in an interview, later adding: “It was unlike anything else in New York.”
Councilmember Francisco Moya, who represents the area, has said that his office receives up to 20 complaints a week about vendors, including that they steal customers from brick-and-mortar businesses, block the sidewalk, and improperly dispose of trash. Moya, who supported the sweep, has blamed the market for unsanitary conditions, rising crime and unruly behavior. “What is happening in Corona Plaza and all along Roosevelt Avenue is just out of control, it’s chaos,” Moya told the Jackson Heights Post.
https://gothamist.com/news/after-street-vendor-crackdown-corona-plaza-market-is-a-changed-place
No comments:
Post a Comment