A celebration in Flushing, Queens (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)
When I first entered office in 2013, I joined other elected officials in the time-honored tradition of attending ribbon-cutting ceremonies. Most of the time, these were for hotels, fancy restaurants, and even luxury condos.
Hard-hat and shovel in hand, I said the usual things about economic growth and prosperity that these projects would hopefully bring to Flushing, and we were all rewarded for this “insight” by the media.
This was the status quo—enabling private industries to launder their reputations through our offices while our constituents received corporate giveaways, free dinners, and other privately-subsidized handouts. Win-win, right?
But over time, it became impossible to ignore that the fulfillment of these promises of economic growth and prosperity was plunging large swaths of people into poverty. As more and more luxury condos began construction, we saw more and more homelessness in the streets. As more and more mega-malls neared completion, more and more elderly were digging for scraps in the trash.
Flushing is truly a tale of two cities: limitless opulence and wealth just blocks away from make-shift homes for the homeless.
The Pew Research Center recently reported that Asian-Americans lead all racial groups in wealth inequality. Those at the top earn nearly ten times more than those at the bottom – the highest among all ethnicities. This is why I am now calling on all Asian-American elected officials and candidates to join me in addressing wealth inequality.
Since my first election, there have been at least three life-altering experiences for me on this topic. These cases compelled me to focus entirely on the economic trauma now affecting the most marginalized people, many of Asian immigrant descent, in my district.
The first incident was in 2014. An older gentleman, early seventies with no family, entered my office using a walker. He could barely see due to his cataracts. He told me that he rode a casino bus every day to collect a $15-$20 voucher, and used that money to pay rent. He needed proof of residence to qualify for benefits, but lived in an illegally converted 1-bedroom apartment with five other seniors. How could this be?
The second took place the same year. We held an affordable housing town hall in the basement of a church, expecting 100 people at most—and nearly 1,200 came. Mostly seniors and older adults, many of them waited several hours before even entering. How could this be?
And lastly, in 2017, there was the tragic life and death of a migrant sex-worker named Yang Song. She was targeted and harassed for months, all because she tried to report being assaulted and raped by undercover police officers. They made her life a living hell until, one day, the police raided her massage parlor and she died fleeing from her abusers. A local real estate developer mocked her death on Facebook as just another “hooker splattering.” How could this be?
This economic trauma and dehumanization is directly linked to soaring wealth inequality. How else can we justify children starving in our own backyard as we enjoy their favorite dim sum? How else can we justify walking past the scores of homeless folks and crowded food lines while rushing off to brunch?
We live under a myth that pathologizes the poor and glorifies the rich. When you are poor, there is something inherently “bad” about you—fundamentally deficient. And when you’re rich, you’re a hard worker, a “good person” entitled to all the world can offer.
But it’s our system that sustains wealth inequality to such an extreme degree. It’s our system that rewards leaders for their short-termism, extractivism, and exploitation to advance “economic priorities.”
Case in point: a group of real-estate developers has proposed a 3 million-square-foot luxury development in Flushing, the Special Flushing Waterfront District. The threat of displacement for thousands of working class people is all too real. Yet not one local politician has joined me in speaking out against this travesty.
I know that for some it is easier to turn to the wealthy for handouts disguised as solutions, rather than hold them accountable for the worst economic divide among all groups.
But as Asian-American leaders we must come to terms with the crises of our times. We need to fight for tax justice and a fair, equitable relationship between business leaders and our community.
Our current tax codes reward big real estate developers. They are incentivized to raise and transfer tax-free capital, creating artificial community “value” while displacing our most vulnerable residents.
We need to progressively tax real wealth, inheritance, and capital gain to the point that it no longer makes sense for private investors to simply hoard vast fortunes. Make it more viable to re-circulate their money into local economies, instead of stockpiling it for their families to roll over into tax-free capital investments—which only further inequality.
Lastly, every mega-project must start with a labor agreement, a minimum of 25% real affordable housing, and a public environmental review.
The next time you venture down Roosevelt Avenue and Main Street -- or the thoroughfares in your neighborhood -- don’t look away from the homeless seniors, day laborers, and migrant workers. Let their suffering open your mind and heart, and make you care enough to change the conditions that led them there.
If you’re able to pass them without a second thought, I hope you enjoy your brunch.
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Ron Kim is a member of the New York State Assembly from Flushing, Queens and adjunct professor at Cornell University. On Twitter @rontkim.
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Helicoptering over the city (photo: Julia Vitullo-Martin)
Thanks to an onslaught of out-of-town tourist helicopters and small planes flying over New York landmarks, a quiet weekend day in Central Park or Governors Island or the Brooklyn waterfront has become a thing of the past. Any revered site from the Noguchi Museum in Queens to Liberty Island south of the Battery is now subject to inundation by 85 to 95 flights starting at dawn on Saturdays and finishing at unpredictable hours, with some flying as late as midnight Sunday. And while helicopters in the old days tried to maintain heights of 1,900 feet to minimize noise, they now routinely hover at 1,000 feet, circling and swooping to maximize passenger views and photo opps.
But New York has an advocate on the horizon—Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, who is now doing everything in her power to tackle this new set of low-flying, loud, polluting helicopters operating in unprecedented numbers. While first setting up a task force of elected officials from New York and New Jersey to examine the issues and propose solutions, her second step is to gather data—no minor feat given that the helicopter industry refuses to release flight data to the public, as does the federal monitoring agency, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which asserts dismissively, "Any helicopter may fly over Manhattan." Not in Brewer’s view: “No issue has produced the number of complaints through the years as helicopters.” Indeed, an analysis by The City showed a more than 130% increase in helicopter noise complaints, rising to 7,758 as of November 13 of this year versus 4,400 for all of 2019.
“The good news is that the industry has agreed to participate,” Brewer told me. “All stakeholders will be meeting, and we hope to make headway in stopping the tourism from above.” In a first for them, the FAA has even agreed to send expert observers to provide input and feedback, Brewer said.
Simply straightening out who’s flying above us is crucial because there have been many misunderstandings over the last few months. The NYPD, for example, is not a major culprit. Yes, the Aviation Unit has 8 helicopters, and some of them flew low and aggressively during the summer’s protests, but as FlightRadar24 shows, the NYPD seldom has more than one helicopter in the air at a time. To clarify this and other problems, Brewer has asked the NYPD to provide helicopter data that they don’t currently make public. She is also requesting a joint meeting with the television stations that use helicopters. In the past the media have used the protections of the First Amendment to fly with impunity, but those days may be numbered as New Yorkers discover via flight apps that it’s the media hovering above their neighborhoods for hours at a time sounding like giant dental drills in the sky.
Doors-Off Heli Hell from Across the Hudson
We live in odd times. We know that. The onslaught of doors-off tourist helicopter flights from New Jersey is a product, first, of the pandemic itself which shut competing New York heliports, and, second, the social media boom, especially Instagram, which encourages people to post current adventures, the more dramatic and outrageous the better. The heli blitz began in July, when New York was mostly locked down, but New Jersey somehow wasn’t. Still, many New Jerseyans had plenty of free time since far fewer people than usual were working or going to school. Some took to the skies—New York City skies.
They took helicopter rides over New York City as entertainment, especially easy to do from local heliports—Kearny, Linden, Newark, Teterboro and dozens more—and unusually cheap, because the heli companies have been offering bargain rates of $99 per ride and up. They also offer an array of 60%-off packages, encouraging tourists to take multiple flights and get their photos of New York City landmarks just right. Give the gift of flight, says FlyNYON:
“Holiday Deals Are Back at FlyNYON!
Get Ready to Fly Over New York City
Take the Perfect Shoe Selfie With a Doors-Off Flight Over Manhattan!”
NYC’s Own Heliports Are Not the Current Culprits
New York City-based tour flights can only originate at the Downtown Heliport. The other two city-owned heliports ban tours. That’s not to say their flights are not annoying, but their flights are not the relentless tours over landmarks. Over 96% of East 34th Street’s flights, for example, are categorized as air taxi.
Flights from the East 34th Street Heliport, directly across from both the Langone Medical Center and densely populated East Side residential blocks, were an early source of controversy so ferocious that Mayor Giuliani’s administration actually tried to appease neighbors by specifically imposing a mandatory 47% reduction in flights and banning heavy Sikorskys from sightseeing flights. But Giuliani was blocked by then-District Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who in 1997 permanently enjoined the city from regulating routes or banning flights. A federal appellate court subsequently allowed the city to restrict operations somewhat, but the lesson was clear: A locality, even a city of New York’s wealth and size, is the lesser power than the federal government when it comes to control of air traffic—which is one reason the FAA’s participation in Borough President Brewer’s task force is imperative.
Still, the pandemic has forced a reduction in flights that activists, ironically, were never able to achieve. As New York City Economic Development Corporation data obtained by the Manhattan Borough President show, flights in 2020 have been greatly decreased from 2019. In August 2020, the last month for which data are available, only 224 flights left East 34th Street, as opposed to ten times as many, 2,472, in 2019.
The heliport is closed weekends, which means no commuter flights from the Hamptons.
The Hudson River Park West 30th Street Heliport wasn’t even supposed to be there. The 1998 act establishing the park barred all sightseeing flights from taking off or landing within its boundaries and prohibited any heliport from operating on park land. But a series of compromises between the city and the Trust effectively sited a heliport on park land. This matter could always be re-visited, though the creation of the huge Hudson Yards development to the immediate north produced a whole new set of potential helicopter-commuting customers, who especially like the huge Sikorskys that thunder across Queens and Manhattan at 1,000 feet, to and from the Hamptons, or up and down the Hudson River. Like 34th Street, West 30th flights have decreased by more than half—In October 2020 they had 403 flights versus 1,013 in October 2019.
Which brings us to the Downtown Heliport, the only one in New York City permitting tours. From a helicopter pilot’s point of view, downtown is a splendid location, with many of New York’s riches right at hand—the Statue of Liberty, Governors Island, Brooklyn Heights, the Brooklyn waterfront, Chelsea, downtown Manhattan including Ground Zero, and so much more. But from a residential point of view, the helicopters are abysmally located, leaving their engines running while on the ground and producing deafening noise when taking off and landing.
Still, like the other two city-owned heliports, Downtown’s traffic is down substantially, with 162 flights (88 tour, 74 non-tour) in September of this year, and 144 flights (77 tour and 67 non-tour) in August, versus 1,891 tour flights in September of last year and 2,470 in August.
For the most part, New York’s heliports adhere to a 2016 agreement, by which helicopter companies based at the Downtown Heliport agreed to (1) avoid flying over land, (2) not fly on Sunday, (3) ban flights over Governors Island, and (4) turn around before the George Washington Bridge when flying up the Hudson. Every single one of these principles is regularly ignored by the tourist flights from New Jersey and, increasingly, Westchester County and Poughkeepsie. They all fly over land, Sunday is their big day, and they hover over landmarks—all of which put the few flights from New York’s heliports at a competitive disadvantage.
One oddity in all of this: the out-of-town tourist helicopters are, astonishingly enough, promoted by New York’s taxpayer-supported NYC & Company, which apparently believes they are part of what it calls hyperlocal tourism. As part of the promotion, the Empire State Building offers its tourists FlyNYON discounts to see the ESB from a helicopter. The Wall Street Journal recently approvingly cited Wings Air Helicopters, which it called “a flight service that typically drew 60-65% of its business from international visitors, is catering to locals with 12-minute sightseeing rides out of Westchester Airport for $90 a person.” It’s hard to make the intellectual leap from out-of-town helicopter flights to benefits for New York’s tourism industry, yet NYC & Company lists dozens.
When Is a Commuter Flight not a Commuter Flight?
Because the FAA classifies commuter flights as essential, anti-helicopter activists in New York City have generally avoided taking on this category of flight. Yet not all flights self-categorized as commuter are truly commuter and those that are tend to fly the lowest and the noisiest—sounding like low-flying diesel trucks—over residential neighborhoods.
The flight apps show that a few rogue helicopter pilots who primarily fly commuter planes sometimes book tourist flights from both West Side and East Side heliports. So far the Economic Development Corporation, the heliport landlord, has not commented, but the matter of EDC oversight should be high on Borough President Brewer’s agenda: Who audits what helicopters are doing, where, and when? At the moment, the answer is no one.
Not only are there no audits telling New Yorkers who’s flying, we have no way of knowing why they’re flying—tourist joyride, essential commute, or, importantly, human organ transplant missions. A Bell helicopter, N39CL, emblazoned with the Blade logo, for example, recently flew from Teterboro across Manhattan at 800 feet, down the East River at 400 feet, over to Newark at 900 feet, and onto Linden where it landed—after what looked like a 30-minute jaunt around Manhattan. Will Heyburn, Blade’s Head of Corporate Development, said that far from being a jaunt, N39CL was delivering a human organ, a liver, picked up at Teterboro and delivered to NYU Langone on 34th Street. “This helicopter is used almost exclusively on organ transplant missions,” said Heyburn, “a very rapid service that was unavailable in New York before Blade. You have four hours max to deliver a heart, for example, and you really can’t do that on roads.”
Still, Blade’s logo does appear on tourist flights made by other companies, such as Zip. A private helicopter and seaplane service that prides itself on being a good corporate citizen, Blade responds when challenged that flights with its logo are not necessarily theirs, writing me: “Our largest concern in the industry are the FlyNYON doors-off flights above and around Manhattan buildings. None of the operator companies that we do business with conduct any over-Manhattan tours. Their operations are over water and around the island.” Yet heli companies like Zip take advantage of the loose oversight to fly questionable routes that are indeed over land, including Central Park.
This is good news and bad: good, because Blade and its very articulate CEO Rob Wiesenthal should be natural allies of Brewer’s task force, but bad, because this simply reinforces what we already know—anyone can fly above us at any time, unobstructed by regulatory agencies or even a corporation whose name is on their plane.
Embedded in all of this is another reason for policy-makers to pay attention to commuter flights: the growth of what Wiesenthal calls “synthetic suburbs,” in areas like the Hamptons or the Hudson Valley not normally accessible for daily trips to the city—but accessible via Wiesenthal’s helicopters.
Can Brewer Succeed?
Brewer has taken on a very tough assignment in which her legal authority is limited even as the grievances of her constituents become ever larger and more persistent. At the moment, hers is the only serious effort to address an increasingly contentious problem. And while a single company, FlyNYON, is responsible for most of the egregious flights, they have recently been joined by others: HelifFlight out of Linden, which offers Groupon discounts, and WingsAir from Westchester County Airport. Both book late-night tours.
The FAA itself warns that “even experienced pilots can miss something as big as a mountain at night,” especially when flying under Visual Flight Rules. Yet night flights have become a constant in New York’s pandemic age, as helicopter companies and pilots push the outer limits of good sense, circling famous skyscrapers at night recklessly.
Can they be stopped? All New Yorkers should be watching Brewer’s efforts carefully.
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Julia Vitullo-Martin is a long-time editor and writer on cities. On Twitter @JuliaManhattan.
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Note: this column has been updated with additional information and comment from Blade.
One part of the Special Flushing Waterfront District site
Flushing residents, local environmental organizations, and nonprofit groups have long despaired over Flushing Creek. The waterway has been a symbol of environmental racism and community disinvestment for many years; it frequently runs cloudy and sulphurous with industrial waste and sewage overflow.
In 2016, local environmental organizations Guardians of Flushing Bay and the Riverkeeper released a vision plan for an integrated and ecologically healthy waterfront. Activists, community residents, and the Flushing Rezoning Community Alliance also published a plan that prioritized the needs of existing residents and discussed safeguards against displacement. Both of these plans were created after many representative community meetings and envisioned a neighborhood free from air and noise pollution, with a clean creek and community resources like senior centers and public parks.
What Flushing residents may receive instead is a massive luxury development proposal driven by the monetary interests of real estate developers F&T Group, United Construction and Development Group Inc, and Young Nian Group. The Special Flushing Waterfront District would be a huge mixed-use development hosting over 1,700 luxury condos, a hotel, retail spaces, and a privately-managed “public” waterfront. None of the community resources supported by locals in previous plans have been incorporated into the proposal. Moreover, the imagined “public” waterfront has the authority to limit access to locals.
Familiar Promises Waiting to be Broken Once More
In 2013, City Council Member Peter Koo approved F&T Group’s bid to purchase Municipal Parking Lot 1 for a severely discounted price. Koo also supported a number of tax benefits and special permits that loosened height restrictions and setback regulations (the minimum required horizontal distance between the sides of a structure from the property line). In return, F&T agreed to build affordable housing units and space for a YMCA in the proposed Flushing Commons, which was built on top of Municipal Parking Lot 1.
Since 2013, F&T has completed Phase 1 of Flushing Commons, constructing two apartment buildings featuring prime office condominiums, luxury apartments, retail spaces, and a new 982-space parking garage. The promised YMCA, publicly accessible spaces, and affordable housing units are scheduled for construction in Phase II. Under the false pretense of community benefit, F&T has only intensified the problems of displacement and crowding in Flushing. In recent years, Flushing has lost many affordable housing units and rent stabilized units because of persistent rezoning and luxury development and existing units face continual threats.
Environmental Racism in Flushing
Like many low-income communities of color, residents of downtown Flushing must live with higher rates of air, water, and noise pollution than their whiter, wealthier neighbors. A 2019 Union of Concerned Scientists report states that "Asian American residents are exposed to twice as much PM2.5 pollution (fine, inhalable particles) as are white residents [in New York].” Furthermore, this type of pollution “is the largest environmental health risk factor in the United States, responsible for 63 percent of deaths from environmental causes (Tessum et al. 2019; Tessum, Hill, and Marshall 2014).” Earlier this year, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Better Buses Restart Plan noted that the intersection at Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue in Flushing was the third busiest pedestrian intersection in the city. These traffic jams contribute to the noise and air pollution that harm the health of Flushing residents.
"People cannot breathe anymore because of the numbers of cars [passing by] and construction being done everywhere," Jay Kim, a resident of 3733 College Point said. "During the Tangram House South construction, I would not dare to open the window even in the hot summer when I am cooking. From my kitchen window, industrial debris was coming in constantly…the outside looked hazy with dust."
With Flushing intersecting numerous flight paths to LaGuardia airport, the rise of condominiums like Flushing Commons and the proposed Special Flushing Waterfront District project stand in direct violation of Federal Aviation Administration height restrictions. This is yet another way the rezoning proposal is a mismatch for the community. These restrictions exist to protect the quality of human lives, yet developers like F&T have attempted to sidestep the FAA height restrictions with waivers on numerous occasions in hopes of building higher towers. "Planes fly very close to the ground in Downtown Flushing…and make a lot of noise. I cannot even open the door in the summer,” Kim said.
Flushing locals hope that the planned development will not cause them to relive the nightmare they endured in 2016 when Sky View Mall was constructed. During that time, nearby NYCHA Bland Houses public housing communities suffered from environmental harassment and rat infestations. Tenants reported giant rats in the courtyards, garbage disposal rooms, and hallways. Enduring the seemingly endless cycles of construction in an already polluted environment is an ongoing source of indignity and pain.
“Where is the remedy?” Kim asked. “Why do we need to suffer the consequences of someone's greed? When the rezoning is approved and construction starts, it will be even worse than before considering the magnitude of the construction."
In addition to environmental pollution, Flushing Hospital’s 2019 Community Health Needs Assessment found that effects of poverty continued to impact their patients’ health. In short, Flushing residents face health impacts from pollution related to environmental racism and poverty as these systems of oppression reinforce and escalate each other’s consequences.
Green Gentrification and Displacement
This rezoning and development are embedded in economic structures and personal choices that promote money-making condominium developments without regard for local residents. Particularly in communities already suffering environmental injustices, luxury housing will lead to economic displacement. In an interview, Assistant Professor Lara Cushing at U.C. Los Angeles noted that “racism doesn’t only operate at an interpersonal level. Our society was set up with laws and zoning practices that maintain segregation. The whole system is not designed to bring about equality.”
The developers promise to bring “environmental cleanup to a vacant, blighted parcel of land” but do not incorporate provisions to protect existing residents from being displaced by the increased property values that come hand in hand with amenities like a usable waterfront. Urban greening and climate resilience projects play a pivotal role in the history of displacement in New York City. A 2019 research study found that the establishment of new greenways near historically disinvested neighborhoods – like the Flushing waterfront – are particularly strong predictors of gentrification. The authors say that parks can “trigger” and “foster” displacement.
Audrey Cho, a junior at local high school Townsend Harris asked, “How could one expect luxury developments to benefit a community where nearly 60% of residents are rent burdened? How will commercial properties serve a town where countless are waiting for food each week, businesses are shutting down, and families are facing eviction?”
A Better Flushing for All
The risk of ‘green gentrification’ causing displacement and health issues more than justifies careful development planning with close community coordination. However, this is not what has happened. A negative declaration on the Environmental Assessment Statement (EAS) prevented the additional public hearings that are required for a final environmental impact statement.
Rushing this rezoning and development will have consequences for Flushing residents’ health and environment. Real questions about the development plan remain insufficiently answered. For example, the EAS includes plans to remediate soil for the construction areas. However, the site is not continuous, the U-Haul building sits between proposed developments. Longtime resident and community activist Bobby Nathan sums up the community fear that, “if the U-Haul site is not cleaned up, it will re-contaminate both sites. It's just a waste of time and money.”
Residents ask why they should endure the construction of apartments they cannot afford or support the remediation of a park they may not have full access to. Downtown Flushing communities, composed primarily of immigrants with limited English proficiency and low-income people of color, are being forced to bear the burden of this rezoning project without being allowed to provide any input. This proposal imposes a solution rooted in environmental racism onto a community already facing negative health impacts from their polluted environment.
Flushing residents desperately want a clean creek and usable waterfront. However, this already-vulnerable community should not accept displacement as the price they must pay for this environment.
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Zander Pellegrino, Seonae Byeon, and Jane Wang are volunteers with the Flushing Anti-Displacement Alliance, a volunteer group of workers who have roots in Flushing and oppose the Special Flushing Waterfront District Rezoning. On Twitter @Flushing_ADA.
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