Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Stealing public assets for private profit.
New York City has an excellent public park system that provides a measure of green space for all the people of that urban colossus. And the mayor of that colossus is proposing to give away 13 acres of prime park land to a billionaire buddy.
Sheik Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan is a smart-looking fellow, whether clad in Burberry blue or desert white.With his money, little Bloomie doesn't care if the public views him as a total schmuck and a gonif as long as one of his greaseball billionaire buddies is happy and can make some money. And for the City, any green space lost now is lost forever.
And he is apparently a falcon-eyed businessman, as this Abu Dhabi sheik seems about to persuade New York City officials to part with 13 precious acres of parkland for the not-so-princely sum of $1 per year, according to Crain’s New York. In exchange, he will pay for a $340 million stadium for his soon-to-be-acquired Major League Soccer team.
In this way, the city chips away at one of its workaday gems, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.
A sylvan strand between parkways and highways, the busiest of Queens’s parks already bears the weight of several stadiums and parking lots.
Javier Valdes is a director of Make the Road New York, a nonprofit group that works to empower the hundreds of thousands of working-class and poor residents of Queens. The group expects to fight for paid sick days and better wages. It does not expect to battle to preserve the little green space available to the densely packed neighborhoods.
“We call this park the ‘pulmones’ of Queens, the lungs of the city,” he says. “Why are we giving our land away to an oil tycoon?”
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, as is his wont, wrinkles his nose at such talk. He is all but tripping over himself in his dash for a mayoral legacy. This corner of Flushing Meadows Park, he said recently, “isn’t very much and isn’t in good shape.” Where to start?
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