Radio Workshop

Flushing, Queens: Metropolis or Suburbia? (Transcript)

by Piya Kochhar

AMB:

Driving sounds, wind-shield wiper

NARRATION:

Most wouldn't consider driving through a quiet, tree-lined neighborhood a cause for raging passions. Unless you happen to be Paul Grazziano and the subject happens to be zoning.

GRAZZIANO:

Oh my god they took the house down...they just took this house down......wrecking group.

NARR:

On a sunny afternoon, thirty-year-old Grazziano drives through some of his favorite Flushing streets.

GRAZZIANO:

Oh wow this ones's going down too...see what's beginning to happen here...look what happened to this corner...and they just took down that one...and they're taking down the one across the street..this whole area, if I don't rezone this area quickly, this whole area will be torn down within the next five years.

NARR:

Grazziano grew up in a two story house on 41st Avenue. He is lobbying to rezone certain Flushing neighborhoods so that they remain as they've always been--mostly upper-middle class, one family homes. He says real estate moguls and big business men are trying to take advantage of arcane zoning laws to change the look of neighborhoods he and other "old timers" grew up in and love so well.

GRAZZIANO:

This area is zoned R 3/2 which allows multi-story housings. And what they did was they tore down a small house and they built an 8 story apartment building. That's very common and you're going to see more this as we go down town.

NARR:

Community board member and long time resident Kim O'Hanian is working with Grazziano. She says her neighborhood is shifting from mainly home-owners to renters and this is turning her quality of life to garbage.

O'HANIAN:

To have somebody come in and tear down a house that's connected to mine and put up a four story monstrosity....and now you have eight families where you had one. Where are they going to park? Where are they going to go to school? Where is this going to come from? You can only do so much with what you've got...

NARR:

Both O'Hanian and Grazziano feel Flushing isn't "their town" anymore.

But old timer David Lebenstein says "their town" has to keep up with changing time. Lebenstein grew up in Flushing but now lives in Manhattan. While he can understand where Grazziano and O'Hanian are coming from, he thinks Flushing needs to head in a new direction. One which is more accomodating to immigrant "new comers." And one which includes a mass transit station, apartment buildings, and parking lots. As a member of Bloomberg's task force for the Olympics, Lebenstein has seen Flushing's future and he's seeing it big.

LEBENSTEIN:

Flushing is a geographical center of this city and we will be very important to the Olympics...and people are ready to put things in place whether that's roads and infrastructure or whether that's stadium, stadia... And frankly, Flushing has lots of underdeveloped property and big real estate developers are interested.

O'HANIAN:

Where's the payoff in the end? You pay your taxes, you do the right thing, you're a good citizen, and a good neighbor and where's the payoff in the end? You're forced out of your house because your quality of life has turned to garbage?

NARR:

While the debate continues to rage, Flushing's future remains in flux. Will it be a bustling business center or a simple suburbia. Depends on whose eyes you see it through.

Piya Kochhar, Columbia Radio News.