No New Tree-Lined Boulevard!

Now that an ambitious expansion of the Javits Center is all but dead, maybe we should reconsider that subway stop:

Two years after the Far West Side was rezoned for large-scale development, a growing number of elected officials, environmentalists and community groups are questioning the city’s and state’s plans for the area.

The city has set aside $2.1 billion for the extension of the No. 7 line from Times Square to the Javits Convention Center and the West Side railyards, the rights to which the Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to auction off for high-rise residential and commercial development. But in an effort to stay within the budget, the city recently eliminated one of two stops along the 1.1-mile extension from the current tunneling contract.

Representative Jerrold Nadler; the city comptroller, William C. Thompson Jr.; and other officials said in a Dec. 19 letter to Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff that it was “imperative” that the city build that subway station, at 10th Avenue and 41st Street, as part of the extension, work on which began last month. Not doing so, they said, would “represent a failure to the area’s growing residential population” and “puts at risk several million square feet of potential commercial and residential development.”

Those officials suggested financing the station by diverting money from projects that could be put on hold temporarily, like building a tree-lined boulevard between 10 and 11th Avenues, from 34th to 39th Streets. Those projects are part of the city’s larger vision for rebuilding the Far West Side.

A tree-lined boulevard? Where did that come from?