We’re So Not Like LA

Those poor, much maligned donut shops:

Two high-profile Long Island City projects that would make areas surrounding Queens Plaza and along Jackson Avenue greener to attract retailers and residential development are expected to be completed by 2010, the New York City Economic Development Corporation’s president said.

The first project would beautify portions of Queens Plaza directly underneath the elevated subway tracks of the G and R lines by adding greenery and pedestrian walkways. Work on the $12 million upgrade would begin in 2008, EDC President Robert Lieber said Monday at a Long Island City Business Improvement District meeting.

“We want to make this a much more inviting place to work and live,” he said.

But Long Island City resident Megan Friedman said she did not believe many people would want to see a green space underneath the screech of the neighborhood’s train tracks. She said the city should focus more on attracting large retailers, such as Barnes & Noble or Target, to bring shoppers from other boroughs into Queens.

“You can get a donut or a lap dance on either side of Queens Plaza,” she said. “But we need retailers that will bring people to this neighborhood.”

We already know that people in Western Queens don’t read but on the other hand a Target . . . that would beat planting a few dumpy trees any day.

(Incidentally, not to geek out too much, but since adding greenery and pedestrian walkways under the G and R lines would involve a sandhog, you can safely assume they mean the N/W and 7 lines in that second paragraph there.)

I’m Sure That’s Exactly The Solution The World Monuments Fund Folks Envisioned

Where most Manhattanites disdain The Donald, some in Queens would seem to welcome the developer’s gentle touch:

Calling it a framework for the future of Flushing Meadows Park, a city consultant offered a sneak peak on Monday at what the park could look like in the future.

Nicholas Quennell, an architect and landscape architect, along with Laurie Hawkinson, an architect, updated the Queens Borough Cabinet at Queens Borough Hall during its monthly meeting. The cabinet is made up of representatives from local community boards.

. . .

Hawkinson discussed the deteriorating New York State Pavilion from 1964, which last week was called one of 100 of the world’s most endangered sites by the World Monuments Fund. “As an architect, I love that structure,” she said. “It’s very iconic and you can see it from everywhere.”

The Parks Department plans to do another structural study for a phased stabilization, but has warned major work there will be very expensive.

“It should serve as a gateway to welcome you,” Hawkinson said. “It’s paid for. It just has to be fixed.”

Vincent Arcuri, chairman of Community Board 5, in the Glendale-Ridgewood area, suggested that a commercial developer could fix the pavilion “and it probably wouldn’t cost him anything.” He pointed to someone like Donald Trump, who went in and repaired the Wollman ice skating rink in Central Park years ago when the city was unable to fix it.

Location Scout: Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.

After Getting Virtually Flashed, Virtually Held Up And Virtually Squeegeed, Any Reservations I Might Have Had About Bernard Tschumi’s Tremendous Contribution To The Lower East Side Skyline Just Slipped Away

Is there a happy medium between those who want New York grittier and those who are quite satisfied with Fifth Avenue’s status as a chain store loss-leader? Yes, and it’s in the form of a Virtual Lower East Side:

Lingering in filthy bars, listening to obscure music and talking to beautiful strangers while wearing hip T-shirts is de rigeur for the Lower East Side.

Only now, you don’t have to be there physically to do it.

The Virtual Lower East Side, a new project by online-world specialists Doppleganger Studios, attempts to recreate every nook of the neighborhood.

While VLES is still under wraps — except for those lucky enough to infiltrate the earliest test stages — hipsters and closet-hipsters alike will soon be able to create a miniature version of themselves and wander through the digital streets. The aim, according to Doppleganger, is to create an online meet-and-greet, where music fans can watch concerts and swap tips without having to complain about the price of beer or extortionate rents.

“The idea is to create the atmosphere and vibe of the Lower East Side as it stands today, and give people an opportunity to experience bands they wouldn’t find in their hometown,” said Andrew Littlefield, founder of Doppleganger, in an interview with Metro.

“We tried to create the venues as you see them, and that’s where the VICE guys came in,” Littlefield said, referring to VICE magazine, who are also involved with the project. “They kept saying, ‘Make it darker, make it darker, make it grimier, make it grimier.'”

“Dude, You Should Totally Run For President!”

I don’t know which is worse — someone who actually wants to run for President* or someone who runs for President after one of his aides eggs him on about it during a testosterone-elevating, alcohol-fueled steak dinner**:

The announcement by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York that he was leaving the Republican Party to become an independent was made after nearly two years in which his aides had laid the groundwork for a potential independent run for president.

They collected technical data on the requirements to put Mr. Bloomberg on the ballot in 50 states either as a third party or an independent candidate. Mr. Bloomberg went to Washington for a round of meetings with opinion leaders and traveled the country giving political speeches, including two this week in California.

And Mr. Bloomberg told associates that he was closely studying the 1992 presidential campaign of H. Ross Perot, the wealthy Texan and friend who drew 19 percent of the vote as an independent, to figure out how much a race in 2008 would cost.

For all that, Mr. Bloomberg told a packed news conference on Wednesday that he did not plan to run for president and intended to serve out his second term as mayor.

“My intention is to be mayor for the next 925 days and 10 or 11 hours,” he said. “I’ve got the greatest job in the world, and I’m going to keep doing it.”

Still, Mr. Bloomberg proceeded to use a news conference to give a critique on national politics. It was the fitting end of a week when he appeared on the cover of Time magazine and gave two speeches in California offering a pointed indictment of partisan politics in Washington, contrasting it with how he runs New York City.

Indeed, his aides said that he had not intended for the news of his registration switch, which he initiated last Wednesday by signing a document with the New York City Board of Elections, to become public until he had returned from California, but he was hardly upset at the swell of attention it drew him.

The aides said there was division in his camp about whether he should run for president. Kevin Sheekey, who was the architect behind Mr. Bloomberg’s unlikely mayoral bid in 2001, urged Mr. Bloomberg to run for president over steaks and drinks at a dinner at Dylan Prime to celebrate his re-election in 2005. Others argued that it was an impossible task and a waste of Mr. Bloomberg’s reputation and resources.

Mr. Bloomberg was described as conflicted about a national run, intrigued by the possibility of winning the presidency but telling friends that he would not run unless he was certain that he could win.

*Because, honestly, do you ever trust someone who wants to be President? It’s a weird thing to do.

**On the other hand, faux humility is useful — the idea that you are “drafted” to run (think a shorter, more nasal Wesley Clark) is probably appealing to people. But back on the first hand, shouldn’t you want to run for President because, you know, you have some commitment to public service or some kind of special purpose in the world? Which is to say, the best apocryphal Presidential-Genesis story might not be that one night your buddies idly suggested, somewhere between the iceberg wedge and the porterhouse, that you should totally go for it. (That said, it is slightly less smarmy than John Edwards’ Wade-hugging “never told this to anyone before” epiphany.)

50 Million Noise Complaints Extrapolated For A Population Of Over 300 Million Would Be Somewhere Near 1.9 Billion Noise Complaints

311 passed the 50 million-call milestone earlier today:

“We have now handled more calls than Apple has sold iPods. As of today, they’ve only sold 49 million,” DoITT Commissioner Paul J. Cosgrave said.

Since its inception in March of 2003, 311 has fielded and average of 40,000 calls a day and has reduced the amount of calls to 911 for non-emergencies by one million.

“That means that our 911 dispatchers are free to send responders to a fire in a matter of seconds, and who knows how valuable those seconds actually are,” Bloomberg said.

According to Cosgrave, the number one complaint that 311 dispatchers deal with is noise.

That is followed by calls from people who are without heat or hot water in the winter, questions about how to pay for parking tickets are the third most common complaint, Freon removal and scheduling a pickup for air conditioners and refrigerators follows and questions about bus and subway information rounds out the top five.

And as befits a top-tier presidential candidate, Mayor Bloomberg was on hand to celebrate 311’s success:

“I have no plans of bringing 311 to a federal level,” he said to the amusement of the assembled press, “But there’s absolutely no reason why the federal government, with a budget of trillions of dollars, should not make available access to services that the average person can get to.”

Not to discredit an astounding achievement for the mayor, but if there were 50 million calls to 311 and 8 million people live in New York, that means that in a little over four years, each of us has called 311 six-and-one-quarter times*. Is that possible? Or are there 311 addicts out there who just can’t get enough information on how to pay parking tickets?

*I’ll admit, we used it once to locate a strip club in Putnam County; they couldn’t help us with that one.