NO TIME FOR US

Joseph Tiraco

This morning, I called Community Board 6 asking to be returned to their mailing list. For years, the monthly notices arrived at my mailbox like clockwork - that is, with the exception of several occasions when the notices abruptly stopped and hotly contested matters just happened to pop up during the lapse. I took this so called purging of the mailing list as a political maneuver rather then an administrative function. In my eyes, local politics resembles a Runyonesque game of sharpies and fast shuffles. I just chuckled at the transparent maneuver and reinstated myself to the CB6 mailing list.

The missing-notice mystery snapped to crystal clarity as a newspaper headline came into focus. Home Depot was going to build another of its superstores in our backyard. And, other developers were jockying to position themselves for a sort of commercial feeding frenzy just south of Metropolitan Avenue. To me, this is a particularly bitter pill to swallow. For a long time now, perhaps for more years than I care to admit, I have crossed this property on foot on my way to the Forest Park jogging track. Each time I cross the property the same realizations are set astir in my mind. As one reaches the street at Woodhaven Blvd by the LIRR overpass, and rushes up the unkempt, urine soaked foot path to the fresh air at the top of the bridge, an extraordinary vista greets them: an ageing industrial park that has outlived its usefulness and a sprawling green area of raw forest; a nonexistent resource in most neighborhoods, but here in the Hills, it occurs in abundance. Like most things of plenty, we tend to take this treasure for granted. Perusing the field, I am sure that the community would love to see this property become park land and that the city would like to one day expand Forest Park further South - only they didn't know it yet. From atop the bridge, it was laid out for all to survey: horse trails, hiking paths, tall trees crowded with sonorous chirpers, exercise facilities; imperceptible now, but there nevertheless, reaching from Forest Park right down to Metropolitan Avenue. What a gift it would make for this community: the most important improvement since Olmsted first touched pen to paper. Of course, it couldn't happen over night. But, we are a patient people, we hill dwellers. Myself here for thirty-five years, and my good neighbor, now eighty plus, born and raised in her Forest Hills home. To us and many more like us, the Hills are home, now and forever. No hurry, I thought.. Some day the right circumstances will arise to facilitate collecting the parcel and we will have our parkland.

The black print jumped from the white paper and the starkness added to the impact of the words. Our leaders were haranguing us in print, using shopworn political tricks to get their way. First the stick. Accept the developers or you'll get worse - homeless shelters. Then the carrot. Accept and you'll get jobs, jobs, jobs. Next came the seeds of despair. Accept because you have already lost - they are building as-of-right and the zone is M1. (This was the gobbledegook. As if there was actually such a thing as as-of-right as long as a single courthouse stood in America). Accept, Accept, Accept.

We are an affluent society here in the Hills. Our affluence is derived not from commercial endeavors, but rather from the desirability of these gently rolling hill tops; Opulent because of the location and bucolic lifestyle here afforded. We are a country hamlet just a stones throw from the world's greatest metropolis. Anything that adds to the rural setting increases our desirability and thereby our affluence, elevating our lifestyle, and causing an upwards spiral further increasing our desirability, our affluence, our lifestyle. Needless to say, it is in our best interest to maintain this upwards spiral. Or put another way - trees equal wealth. Add a tree to our community and we all profit, cut down a tree and we are all diminished.

The size of the land parcel that the developers are eager to get their hooks into is not just a few trees, but acres of potential greenbelt. The project proposed is a giant commercial development. This can disrupt our prosperity, setting the area into a downward spiral. Clearly, the entire matter of large scale development, with its bustle, its sterility, its congestion is not in our best interest. Other places have used greenbelts to limit commercial activity. The entire city of Toronto is surrounded by a greenbelt on which no further construction is allowed. And closer to home, the Adirondack preserve - 450,000 acres - were set aside as a greenbelt to limit commercialization. Loggers had cut down every single tree in these mountains, leaving the magnificent peeks bald as a cue ball and killing all the native wildlife. Pictures of this period hanging in the Adirondack museum are truly painful to look at. The loggers had brought about an environmental disaster threatening the destruction of seven major watershed areas that supply half the drinking water in the state. (anything for a buck). The value of trees became self evident. The mountains are now a protected area and the words Forever Green added to the New York State constitution. Today, the area is a recreational paradise - booming. Trees and green landscape are producing far more prosperity then any commercial endeavor could provide. I believe that all those who live the good life here in the Hills and love their homes and community, should come together to fight off the developers, form a public land acquisition company to hold this land in common as a greenbelt or a private park (something akin to Gramercy Park) with an eye towards eventually appending the land to the northern boundary of Forest Park.

When our leaders tell us that the developers are acquiring as-of -right, we should hear the words as-of-our-rights, for who has more rights to the land then the community, which seeks to acquire the parcel for the common good. Who are these developers? Quick buck artists who will ruthlessly plunder the community to add to their bottom lines, that's who. Brigands who are looking for a David and Goliath situation, only in their version David always loses. We have seen them bully their way into other communities. Usually, the same sorry scenario ensues. The community sends a few pro bono attorneys to oppose them which they easily brush aside and move in. Again, it is worth repeating: We are an affluent community, quite capable of mounting a strong attack. So, its not a David and Goliath situation we must suffer, but something more like, Samson meets the Philistines, and our community leaders can provide the jawbone. These quick buck artists aren't looking for a real fight. Roll out the cannons. Man them with stalwart men and woman. Fire a broadside and they'll cut and run, cursing and shaking their fists at us, but they'll run, looking for some soft community where they can fight the lopsided battles they are used to winning.

The newspaper trembled in my hands. I was livid. Accept. accept, accept, the community leaders were saying, but I was reading, "shut up and take it". Shut up and take it while we rape your neighborhood. Shut up and take it, the pollution, congestion, crass commercialism, and degradation. Shut up and take it while we lower your standard of living. The bullshit was spilling out onto my kitchen table. I tossed the paper in disgust. Hence, the phone call to the Community Board.

"Hello, I would like to be reinstated to your mailing list". There was a brief pause.

"I'm sorry. We no longer keep a public mailing list. Budget constraints have forced us to make cuts...."

"So you cut the monthly notices. Isn't the prime function of a community board to disseminate information? How do you justify cutting out the mailing list?"

"Sir, you can call or stop by our office once a month and we will tell you where and when the next meeting is held."

I knew when I was being had. The whole community was being had. The story of Demetrius, king of Macedonia came to mind. One day an old woman upon seeing Demetrius galloping by, flagged him down. She began to register a complaint. Madam, I have no time for this, snapped Demetrius wheeling his horse applying spur to skin. No time to be king, er, she admonished after him, stopping Demetrius dead in his tracks. Wise individuals aspiring to positions of power have heeded the message ever since then.

My good neighbors, we have the right to expect decent leadership handling our civic affairs. One would believe the guardians of prosperity to be wise and capable individuals able to parry the murderous thrust into our periphery. Instead, we find a calcified, pursy band of partisans, disdainful and deceitful to the point of dereliction, meeting in darkness trying to avert the staid stare of community.

October 13, 1995