Sandra Park of Queens Community House, left, and Jackson Heights residents Nuala Narango, Nuala O'Doherty and Paul Bundarin discuss ways to improve their community and increase the area’s green space. PHOTO BY SMRITI RAO
Saturday may be the hardest morning to crawl out of bed, but this week more than 100 residents of Jackson Heights gathered at the Renaissance Charter High School on 81st Street to brainstorm how to make their community greener.
Jackson Heights was originally intended to be a “garden in the city.” Edward MacDougall who headed the Queensboro Corporation, which developed the area in 1908, wanted to build a “city within a city” and began creating garden apartments, with the intention that working class folks could have access to greenery, sunlight and fresh air at home.
Many of those pre-war co-ops are still around, boasting immaculate gardens, but they are among only a relative few green spaces in the area, and Jackson Heights ranks 50th out of the city’s 51 council districts in available park space.
To make matters worse, at least in the short term, the city recently announced that Travers Park, the only neighborhood playground, will be closed for renovations for upwards of nine months, temporarily straining outdoor resources further.
Saturday’s meeting, organized by the Queens Community House along with Friends of Travers Park, a committee of the Jackson Heights Beautification Group and the Pratt Center for Community Development, marks the start of a three-month conversation among residents aimed at outlining what the community sees as Jackson Heights’ most pressing green needs.
“The first stage is community dialogue,” explained Vicky Weiner, director of planning and presentation at the Pratt Center for Community Development, “so the discussion can go home, to your place of work, the children can talk about the community’s issues to their friends in school.”
In the school auditorium, residents sat down in groups over coffee and muffins and began listing grievances.
“There are no public green spaces,” said Roy Sirengu, who moved to Jackson Heights with his wife earlier this year.
“I walk around a lot, bike a lot,” added another resident named Louis So. “The funny thing is there are no places to sit in this area — no public benches.”
“We need better parks, more trees,” piped in 8-year-old Nuala Naranjo, the youngest and most vocal participant at the table.
There were calls for restaurants to start composting to curb the amount of trash they generate, and for additional garbage cans to be brought in. Residents complained of bus exhaust and dog feces, drug dealing and graffiti on the BQE.
It wasn’t all gloom and doom at the tables; participants also spoke of what they love about life in Jackson Heights. “There is a big sense of community,” said little Nuala’s mother, Nuala O’Doherty. “I lived in Long Island City for 20 years, but no one knew me. Here, I go to the cleaners, and they go, ‘Hi there.’”
The next step in the journey toward greening involves creating “community workbooks.”
“The idea is that the community boards talk to their residents and fill out the workbook,” said Michael Epp from the Pratt Center. “Mayor Bloomberg’s office has PlaNYC 2030, which asks the question ‘How do we make New York City more sustainable?’ But what this means for individual neighborhoods is still up to residents to define.”
At community board meetings, residents will discuss and rank the issues that annoy them in the neighborhood and will fill out the workbooks accordingly.
The greening group will meet again in February, compile workbook answers and discuss what can be done to address prevalent issues of concern.
The mayor has pledged to eventually have a park within a 10-minute walk of every city resident, and Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras (D-East Elmhurst), whose district encompasses part of Jackson Heights, says she plans to “hold the mayor accountable to that commitment.”
Ferreras didn’t attend last weekend’s meeting but said park space is “vital to the health of our communities.”
This piece first appeared in Queens Chronicle.
