Board 2 Approves Sunnyside BID, Some P.S. 1 Additions
BY THOMAS COGAN

Lipman and Berman said the renovation of P.S. 1's entrance would make it better defined and more neighborhood-oriented

The plan to establish a Business Improvement District (BID) in Sunnyside was brought to Community Board 2 for approval at the board's February meeting, and its bearer, John Vogt, president of the Sunnyside Chamber of Commerce, got a friendly reception. The plan for altering the entrance of P.S. 1, the contemporary art museum on Jackson Avenue in Long Island City, was brought to the meeting the same night, but its bearers, Fred Lipman, the museum's deputy director, and Andrew Berman, architect of the plan, were greeted with skepticism- not because the entrance alteration plan was disliked, but because as presented it does not in any way change the museum's boundary wall that board members and others have seen as an insult since it was constructed at the turn of the present century. After that, a presentation concerning the Queens General Assembly was made to this board meeting, as it is being made to other board meetings in the borough. In this instance, the presentation included some striking testimony. There was tentative news about another meeting concerned with landmark status for Sunnyside Gardens, and there were City Planning and committee reports.

Vogt told the meeting that the effort to get a BID for Sunnyside has thus far taken four years of his time, having been a much more difficult venture than he ever imagined it would be. But after the necessary number of landlords had agreed that a BID would be what Sunnyside needs, Vogt had an interagency meeting with city officials in December and was now facing the community board. He briefly explained the function of a BID, which is funded by city assessments on the local businesses involved. The money from assessments is turned back to the BID for its operations. Vogt said the Sunnyside BID would have its own sanitation, security and promotional forces, and could obtain such amenities as holiday lights. In addition, it would maintain the Sunnyside Arch on Queens Boulevard, below the Bliss/46th Street station on the No. 7 line, once the arch has undergone the extensive repair that is being funded from various sources. There will be a BID office and a district manager. The motion to approve the Sunnyside BID was passed unanimously, though one member had to abstain because of a commercial conflict.

Lipman and Berman said the renovation of P.S. 1's entrance would make it better defined and more neighborhood-oriented. The steel fence now there would be removed. An atrium would be built over the courtyard, thus, in Berman's words, making the courtyard a building.

There would be better crowd control and more efficient means of entering. A visitor's center would be built, allowing groups to meet more easily. As for the wall, its 150-foot length would provide room for a lot of lighting- computer-generated, restrained lighting that would brighten the local atmosphere at night. Berman said the new architecture would grow from a "close reading" of the original.

Dorothy Morehead was the first to say that nothing was really being done about the wall. When the wall went up several years ago it took the community by surprise, Board Chairman Joseph Conley said; the board, for one, was never warned of its coming. He added that the board would send a letter to the museum complaining that no matter what the renovation, the wall would still be there after it was done. Jimmy Van Bramer, another board member, said that it might look nice when alight at night, but during the day it would be the same old ugly barrier. When the land use committee report was made, Committee Head Lisa Deller said that P.S. 1 cares what Community Board 2 thinks, but Conley countered that the museum was always slow to come back to the board. It was supposed to "engage the community", he said, but seldom did. Penny Lee of the Department of City Planning said that a zoning change on Jackson Avenue in 1995 probably led to the wall, which she described as "a really big chunk of Jackson Avenue", and to many it is an unintended consequence of the zoning change.

The motion that was made stated approval of the atrium, visitors' center and lighting, but at the same time demanded "permeability" of the wall, so it might be breached if not torn down. The motion was carried, with three dissenting votes.

It was Community Board 2's turn to hear about the Queens General Assembly, and Susie Tanenbaum, community and cultural coordinator from Borough President Helen Marshall's office, was there to tell them. She left most of the presentation to three people who have belonged to this body. The assembly has 14 advisory members and 28 delegates, the latter group having one member of each of the borough's 14 community boards paired with someone from an ethnic, religious, cultural or civic group. The purpose of the assembly is the promotion of greater understanding among the various ethnic and religious groups in the borough, which is constantly described as the most ethnically diverse county in the United States. The three introduced by Tanenbaum were Ellen Kang and Ron Casey of Board 2 and Ruby Danta, a Cuban immigrant living in Woodside. Kang's story was related by Borough President Marshall at January's Community Board 3 meeting: she was persuaded by the BP to join the assembly in 2004 when, by some political misfortune, she lost her seat on the CB 2 board; a seat that she regained last year. Kang said she found the assembly to be a great and enlightening experience and fondly recalled visiting the Langston Hughes branch of the Queens Borough Public Library on Northern Boulevard in Corona, which she found revelatory. Casey found his assembly membership to be a way to get to know more of Queens, becoming acquainted with people from Far Rockaway and other towns. He said he was affected positively by small group ac- q u a i n - t a n c e sessions at meetings of the assembly. He recalled the year's-end presentation, "The House We Live In", a show of ethnic dress and folkways. On that occasion, Casey said, Ellen Kang wore a Korean gown as a display of her native land. (Kang said she thought of wearing the gown at the board meeting in January but put off the occasion until possibly later.) Ruby Danta described how she has found life in Queens more welcoming for raising a family than it was in Brooklyn, and how her parents thrived in Queens also. Though she lives in Woodside, she said she has come to consider Jamaica, Flushing, Corona, Elmhurst and perhaps other parts of the borough equally homelike because of the friendships she has formed there.

Conley said there should be another meeting soon about landmark status for Sunnyside Gardens, which would make it three meetings in three months' time. He said Wednesday, February 28 is possible, if attendance by an official from the Department of Buildings can be confirmed. Ron Casey pointed out that the next board meeting takes place the following night, but Conley said feasible alternate dates are hard to find. (With the 108th Precinct Community Council's monthly session on schedule for February 27, the possibility of meeting fatigue is strong for some.) Conley said email in favor of and opposed to landmarking is heavy.

Penny Lee of City Planning said the city seeks to acquire the south half of the Queens West building site beside the East River in Long Island City. She hoped somebody from Planning would be able to attend the board's next land use meeting to discuss what might be done on the site if it is acquired. She said that the stage is set for construction to begin next year on Jackson Avenue and Queens Plaza, both of which are due for serious makeovers. Dorothy Morehead, making her environmental committee report, said that Eric Baard of the East River Boathouse spoke at the last committee meeting and announced that he is working on establishing a boatbuilding museum on Anable Basin, a small inlet of the East River that is currently quite isolated. In a few years, however, a long line of residential towers should stand nearby and provide some of the patronage such a museum would need.