Maloney Surveys Western Queens Development
BY THOMAS COGAN

Congressmember Carolyn Maloney (l.) was introduced by Assemblymember Catherine Nolan (r.) at the October breakfast meeting of the Long Island City Business Development Corporation. In the center is LICBDC President Gayle Baron.

Congressmember Carolyn Maloney addressed the October meeting of the Long Island City Business Development Corporation, giving her audience on the 50th floor of the Citibank Building a survey of recent developments in Western Queens and Manhattan, from time to time citing her part in their generation and growth. Among them are the two largest current civic projects in the United States.

Maloney, introduced to the breakfast audience by Assemblymember Catherine Nolan, started by calling the $23 million rebuilding of Queens Plaza "a top priority," one that must ease the traffic congestion there and also encourage alternate modes of transport, such as bicycling. To either side of her and behind the rostrum were illustrations, supplied by the Department of City Planning, of what the plaza might look like if it became the "welcoming gateway" Maloney said it could be. She is especially close to the project, having secured funds for it, often millions of dollars at a time, from 2002 to 2006. Nearby, in Hunters Point, she observed, there are 39 development projects in the ground, with 4 million square feet of floor space. The next new building to open, in December, is the United Nations Credit Union tower-with windows that face only Manhattan, not Queens. It stands next to the second Citibank building, the recent topping-out ceremony of which was attended by Maloney.

The two biggest civic projects in the U.S. are both in New York, Maloney pointed out. One is the Queens Connector, which will eventually provide railroad service to both Grand Central Terminal and Pennsylvania Station; the other is the Second Avenue Subway, a 16-station line running from Harlem to the Financial District, that will be connected to Queens through the 63rd Street tunnel, which was dug under the East River and through Roosevelt Island in the 1990s and included construction of the Queensbridge, Roosevelt Island and 63rd Street/Lexington Avenue stations. This is the largest subway project since the opening of the Sixth Avenue Independent line in 1940 (though one Second Avenue line or another has been proposed for more than 85 years and one of them was partially dug in the 1970s, before New York's fiscal crisis caused its suspension). Maloney said another subway line for Queens is in the plans, though she didn't say where it might be.

Maloney had an anecdote about mass transit that was a tribute to the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. She said that in the late 1990s, she was present at a ceremony organized by Time Magazine for many of the people who had appeared on the front cover. The most prominent guest was President Bill Clinton, though Senator Moynihan was another. The ceremony was in New York and the president took many of the attendees with him to the dinner and back on Air Force One. The president several times asked Moynihan his opinions. In all his answers, Moynihan included the words, "mass transit", which had recently been excised from an appropriations bill. His repetition of those two words finally had its effect on the president, who said he'd put an aide in touch with him, so the senator and the administration could work out a strategy, which was ultimately successful, to get mass transit returned to the bill in a Congress dominated by Republicans.

Maloney was asked about ferry service, which a questioner believed could have several launch points in Queens. Her interrogator was forceful about it to the point where she asked who he was and, hearing that he heads an organization of ferry advocates, said she'd like to hear more from them.

At the end of the address, Joseph Conley, chairman of Community Board 2, thanked Maloney for bringing the Queens Plaza plan as far as it has come. "The whole thing began in her office," he said.