Last month, a chorus of complaints about the traffic rose from the neighborhood at the first meeting of Western Jackson Heights Alliance. For business owners, the congestion and lack of parking is not just about noise and pollution, it’s becoming a threat to their livelihood.
“Business is getting very, very slow,” said Mr. Singh, who owns the Sona Music store on 37th Avenue with his father.
From his post by the cash register, Singh can see through the large front window to the short row of meters out front and then to the opposite side of the street, where parking is prohibited during the day. The neighborhood was known as a destination for South Asians from all over. No longer, he said: “They don’t come anymore because they get too many tickets.”
From 2005 to 2006, tickets issued within the 115th Precinct for parking infractions jumped: double-parking violations increased 43 percent; parking at a bus stop violations rose 23 percent and violations for parking at a fire hydrant went up 82 percent. These statistics were delivered by the Department of Transportation at last month’s meeting to residents demanding better traffic enforcement.
But another property owner who agrees the uptick is driving away business also says it’s driving a wedge between residents and business owners, between white Americans and South Asian immigrants.
“They are squeezing and killing the business (of those) who are not European Americans,” said Mina Farah, who owns half a dozen buildings on 73rd Street. Her tenants, including the Subzi Mandi, Apna Bazaar and the Bangladesh Plaza, are all complaining about the loss of business. “They are crying to me they want me to lower their rent,” Farah said, adding, “They are brown Indians.”
Farah is originally from Bangladesh and lives in Richmond Hill. She has every intention of fighting for more municipal parking in Jackson Heights. “I want to stay in this neighborhood and I want to increase my holdings here,” she said.
In fact, she plans to add four floors and and nearly 10,000 square feet to the building that houses Subzi Mandi and another five floors and 7,000 square feet to the building next door. While the city recently denied both her applications due to unspecified noncompliance with building and/or zoning regulations, Farah still intends to pursue the over $1 million project.
She wants more parking meters on 73rd Street. At the moment, there are only 14 meters along 73rd Street in the two-block span on either side of 37th Avenue. The street quickly turns residential after that.
Will Sweeney, who started the Western Jackson Heights Alliance, thinks his aims and those of shop owners are aligned. “I don’t understand how less traffic, less noise and more parking aren’t better business for everyone, and I don’t know how there is a racial element to this,” he said.
Several other business owners — of all skin tones — concurred. Eddie Beglane, proprietor of the Ready Penny Tavern, has been on 73rd Street, across from Farah’s property, for seven years and doesn’t see a racial divide. Neither does the South Asian man who is superintendent of the building across the street from Beglane’s tavern.
“It’s not a question of color, it’s a question of parking,” he said.
Some of the problems may be aired at a meeting between Farah, board members of the co-op buildings closest to the intersection, and members of two merchants associations that will be held in Councilwoman Helen Sears’ Jackson Heights office this week.
While he couldn’t clarify the specific agenda or purpose of the meeting, Sears’ aide, Dalton Laluces, said issues of meters and parking were likely to come up. “We’re going to touch on those, but not going to focus on those” he said.
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