Whatchoo Talkin’ ‘Bout, Willets?

Before the City Council agrees to Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to transform Willets Point by building housing, retail, hotels and a convention center at the site, can someone explain why anyone would want to build housing, retail, hotels and a convention center on an apparently highly polluted site in the flightpath of planes landing at LaGuardia? Because I’m really, really curious about that one:

City hall officials struck an eleventh-hour deal Wednesday to transform gritty Willets Point into what they called the city’s next great neighborhood.

The City Council is expected to ratify the agreement by today’s deadline by granting a host of zoning and other measures required under the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure.

The $3 billion redevelopment plan will turn the heavily polluted 62-acre tract near Shea Stadium in Queens into a modern complex of residential, retail, entertainment and commercial uses, including a hotel and the city’s first convention center built outside Manhattan.

Mayor Bloomberg hailed the agreement with Council officials “as one of the big, important wins for New York City’s economy” at a time when it needs it the most.

He said it will create 18,000 construction jobs and 5,000 permanent jobs and will generate $25 billion in economic benefits in the next 30 years, including $1.3 billion in direct tax revenues.

The redevelopment, which will take a decade, is to include 5,500 units of housing, and the new deal calls for boosting the affordable housing component to 1,920 units, or 35% of the total. That’s up from 1,100 units, or 20%, in the original version. Some 800 of the affordable units will be targeted to families earning less than $37,000.

Location Scout: Iron Triangle.

This Almost Makes You Wish They Just Went After It Via Eminent Domain

They must be trying to play us:

The city bought itself a half-acre of land at Willets Point for $3.5 million – snapping up three parcels in Queens’ redeveloping “Iron Triangle” at nearly 10 times their assessed value.

The financials of the Oct. 2 deal with real-estate company BRD Corp. provide the first glimpse into the cost of clearing the 62-acre complex to make way for a multibillion-dollar residential and commercial development.

. . .

The BRD deal was “pretty good” for the seller, said Steve Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, noting that the price of $161 per square foot exceeded the $100 to $150 average in the outer boroughs.

According to a spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg, the city has $409 million in the capital budget over five years for Willets Point property acquisition, business relocation and infrastructure improvements.

$80-some-odd million a year for contaminated land in the flightpath of LaGuardia makes $16 million for plastic bags look like an absurd drop in the bucket . . .

Location Scout: Iron Triangle.

So Either . . .

. . . this is the most important use of city money, and far, far outweighs incurring potential multi-gazillion-dollar deficits or the mayor is totally full of shit and there is not and will not be a crippling financial crisis (in which case, take a third term off the table!). Because it can’t be both:

The city has gobbled up another chunk of Willets Point in Queens as Mayor Bloomberg pushes his plan to transform the gritty industrial zone near Shea Stadium.

In the biggest land deal to date in the neighborhood, the city persuaded Indian food distributor House of Spices — the second-largest landowner at Willets Point — to sell its 4 acres, city officials told the Daily News.

The deal is expected to be announced Monday along with an agreement for a third of an acre owned by another company.

Combined with previously inked deals, the city now controls more than 40% of the 62-acre tangle of auto body shops and other businesses — and could soon have half the land.

Bloomberg wants to spend $3 billion to turn the area into a glitzy enclave of 5,500 residences, stores, a hotel and a convention center.

Location Scout: Iron Triangle.

Fatima, Lourdes . . . Jamaica, Queens?

And somewhat more elegant than the usual cheese-on-toast type of sighting:

To most people, the purple flower that sprouted between two concrete slabs in a Queens backyard would be just a hardy vestige of summer.

Sam Lal sees something more.

The Jamaica man is convinced the mysterious blossom is an incarnation of the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesh — and neighbors and friends are flocking to see it.

The nearly 4-foot-tall flower grew in June and began to resemble an elephant’s head and trunk in August. Lal said that the ailments that had plagued him for months disappeared.

“This formation came to heal my illness,” the 60-year-old Hindu man said of his relief from pain due to a bone spur near his spine and bulging discs in his neck.

“They say God comes in many forms. I figure this has taken the form of a plant to come into my yard to bless me,” said Lal, who immigrated from Guyana three decades ago.

Experts at the Queens Botanical Garden identified the plant as a member of the amaranth family, which is native to Africa, India and southern Central America but not the U.S. Horticulturalists at the garden have never seen an amaranth take an elephant-like shape, garden spokesman Tim Heimerle said.

“For it to have that long trunk like this is not a natural thing,” he said.

Lal believes the flower’s position — growing through concrete, facing a garage he converted to a prayer space — is evidence of a connection to Ganesh, revered as the Remover of Obstacles.

Where There Is A Need, Fill It

Next thing you know, the EDC will want to build a mall there, but for now, smart entrepreneurs step in:

Recently, a small jewelry store opened at 19-10 Hazen Street in the East Elmhurst section of Queens, a location that gets a highly specific type of traffic, being right next to the bridge that leads to Rikers Island.

One might question the wisdom of putting a jewelry store so close to one of the world’s largest penal colonies. But the owners of the shop — Michael’s Gold Market (“The Leader in Extravagant Jewelry Design”) — selected the location with care, said a man who sat in the shop last week behind bulletproof glass.

“We get inmates’ relatives coming for visiting hours, and they shop here, especially if they have to wait around a while,” said the man, who refused to give his name but said that he and his brother owned the shop. “Our best customers are corrections officers. They cash their paychecks right there and come here.”

He pointed to the adjacent business: a check-cashing outlet that offers Western Union, with special rates for wiring money into Rikers Island, which on any given day has about 12,000 inmates, a staff of about 9,000 correction officers on the job and an average of 1,500 visitors.

Another local entrepreneur, Christopher Samolis, 26, of Astoria, operates a food truck parked daily near the Rikers bridge, and he also offers many insights about the conditions under which a businessman operates just outside the largest prison in the city.

“They were smart to open the jewelry store,” Mr. Samolis said. “You really have to have a niche to survive in this location, and they have it.”

“This location” would be where 19th Avenue meets Hazen Street, the northern end of which turns into the Rikers Island Bridge, just west of La Guardia Airport. Mr. Samolis has his niche. He is the only food vendor at the entrance to the jail, where visitors can spend all day trying to get in to see an inmate.

“The higher the crime rate, the better off I do,” said Mr. Samolis, as he hustled, with his brother Michael, 19, to provide hot dogs to customers who had just come off the Q100 Limited bus that runs a loop from the jail to Queensboro Plaza. There are also privately operated vans that shuttle visitors on and off Rikers Island for a $2 fare each way.

Location Scout: Rikers Island.