One to One - Elizabeth lusskin, lic partnership

♪ [Theme Music] ♪ SHERYL MCCARTHY: Hello, I'm Sheryl McCarthy of the City University of New York, welcome to One to One. I'm delighted to welcome Elizabeth Lusskin, president of the Long Island City Partnership and executive director of the Long Island City Business Improvement District to the program today. Anyone whose ever taken the number 7 train or driven across the Ed Koch 59th street bridge has witnessed a remarkable transformation of the cityscape, the factory that once made Chiclets, Dentyne and Black Jack gum is gone. But if you want to see new museums, a thriving law school and some cutting edge architecture, you need only board the subway and in ten minutes max from midtown you can find them in the heart of Long Island City. We'll learn about the explosion that has taken place there over the last few decades and what we can expect to see in the near future. Welcome. ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: Thank you. SHERYL MCCARTHY: Long Island City is right across the east river from midtown Manhattan, it's officially a part of Queens but it doesn't seem to be either part of Queens, it doesn't seem to be part of Manhattan. It seems to be its own entity. ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: Well, I think that we are very much a part of Queens and proud of it, and a part of western Queens. But Long Island City does retain its identity as a city. The name is not just by a fluke. Before the consolidation of the five boroughs into New York City, Long Island City was a full-fledged city on the waterfront and neighborhoods that today we identify as Woodside, Astoria, Sunnyside were all actually neighborhoods of Long Island City. And that's why post office addresses in these various areas will still say Long Island City, it's still from the official I guess government recognition of broader area and it is still thriving as a what could be a self sufficient city. I mean you've got everything from industry, still existing, culture, residents, commercial, we even got a farm on top of the Standard Motors building, a full-fledged farm up there. So, theoretically we could survive on our own. But fortunately we are very much integrated into the greater city and into Queens. Providing goods and services as well as homes for people in the city and really good jobs for people, many of them from western Queens and from Brooklyn, but the greater region as well. SHERYL MCCARTHY: Okay, and it officially merged with New York City and became part of Queens back in 1898. ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: That's right. SHERYL MCCARTHY: A long time ago. In the 1900's it was a very highly industrialized area. What were some of the kinds of, we're talking about a lot of manufacturing. What kinds of businesses are we talking about that were over there? ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: Everything. There was a lot of car factories. There's gum as you said. I think over time there was heavier industry before, and now there's still some but a lot of it obviously is lighter industry. Just as a lot heavy industry moved outside of the city, you know there were steel manufacturers, there were all kinds of companies. Unfortunately the legacy lives on in Newtown Creek which is being cleaned up, from a number of these oil and steel companies and so on. But, it was, as I say I think a sort of heavier mix in the past that's become a lighter mix. Now you have in addition to concrete companies and things like that you have a lot of food manufacturers, you have 3D printing companies; you have a lot of printers. When Hudson Square was redeveloped years ago by Trinity in the early part of the 20th century, and the printing district moved, a lot of that, I'm sorry in the middle of the last century, moved over to Long Island City. So there's still a very strong printing industry there, but there's you name it, it's being made there. There's clothing, there's high end embroidery and fortune cookies, anything you want its there. SHERYL MCCARTHY: Who knew that there was this kind of industrial hub still in New York City? I mean everybody thinks it's all gone. ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: And it isn't. And I think that a lot of the industry that's still here is in industrial areas, sort of off the grid, like the navy yard or various industrial parks and so on. And Long Island City, you have the industrial right there on the transportation grid. Whether its road, rail, transit, it's all right there. And the companies that are there are there because they need that access to their customers, to their employees, whatever. So it's a symbiotic relationship of place and business type. I'd say most companies if they really don't need to be there anymore for business purposes, you know, would have moved. But there is a value to the city at large and having these businesses there because they deliver goods and services conviently to the city. And if they're off the grid somewhere, that won't happen. And likewise from an employee base, these companies provide really good middle class jobs, as well as upper-class jobs and so on. And they provide those to people who can get there by transit, which is, and by walking as well. SHERYL MCCARTHY: When did this, the most recent phase of its development begin? I'm talking about the recent boom. When did it start? And was there a pivotal event in that? ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: Well we like to say that we're experiencing explosive growth 30 years in the making. So some of the, what's happened now is market forces right. So that a lot of developments that were planned. Some of them 30 years ago like the build out of the waterfront in the Hunters Point South area, where you had the Queens West development, which is by the Pepsi sign, most people can identify that. And overtime they've been seeing these towers going up. Well that whole waterfronts being finished, but that plan was 30 years ago. And then in the early 2000's there was a, zoning was changed in the Queens Plaza area and Court Square area to allow residential to mix in with the commercial. Well of course the crash came in 2008 and so on and nothing happened for a while. And now we're seeing this explosive residential growth because the market is favoring that, unfortunately the commercial which was supposed to be the dominant growth hasn't happened because the market at the moment is disfavoring that. That construction costs are the same whether you're in Queens, or you're in Manhattan but the rents are not the same. But people can make a lot of money on residential and it's, you know every day there's another building that goes up. There's also been a tremendous amount of hotel development before the zoning was changed in some areas to protect industrial there was a loophole as it were that allowed hotel construction. And many, many hotels got into the ground. We now have 23 operating, there's 7 or 8 more being built. And that's brining a lot more visitors and so on in. And you take that demand, the new residents, the existing people and they can create a nice demand pool for the kind of services and amenities that everybody needs in a mixed use district or industrial district and so on. We all want a neighborhood that has good transit, that has good restaurants, that has good service retail and so on. So I think that's really the next step that will happen, putting all this demand together. SHERYL MCCARTHY: I understand that the largest public housing project in the United States is in Long Island City. ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: Yes. Queensbridge Houses which is on the waterfront. Really an enormous complex, I don't have the, I don't want to get all the numbers wrong but there are multiple tens of thousands of people living there and there's also Astoria Houses and Ravenswood Houses which are two smaller housing projects. And a lot of lower density housing that's there as well. And I think that one of the great challenges going forward is the industrial sector, which means lots of different things, its everything form high tech to you know basic manufacturing, is doing well. We need more space for it. And there are, people want to expand, they want to hire more people, how do we connect those jobs, many of which are for people who don't necessarily have to have lot of, you know, higher education. How do we connect those with people in the public housing projects? In the other low income areas within Long Island City, it makes sense right; the jobs are here the people are here. Let's put them together. SHERYL MCCARTHY: What are the demographics, who lives on Long Island City? ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: Its, really runs the full gamut. You have some people that have been there for a hundred years in some of the older houses that were always mixed in with the industrial. You have traditional, you know, Italian ethnic, Greek ethnic and so on. But you also have many new comers from all over the world and different parts. You have the large public housing projects and in the new housing you have a lot of which is geared sort of more luxury, you have both the expected which is the young single people who are all sharing apartments together. You also have the not so expected which is empty nesters, people who are still active middle aged, their children have gone off to college, they don't want to take care of the house anymore. They're probably still working, they want to be near their job, they can sell their house get a really great apartment in a lovely neighborhood right with, you know, museums and restaurants and, you know, a minute to Carnegie hall or a minute to Times Square. And so we're seeing a noticeable demographic of these empty nesters as I'm calling, moving in. And then also surprising you're getting people who already having young children. It's not just the people who sort of naturally you know meet, mate and procreate. And one of the challenges that we have is that most of the housing that's being created at all income spectrums is smaller apartments, and there are people who want large apartments and want to stay, they love the neighborhood, we've got a great new waterfront park, we've got great schools, and its very hard to find a larger apartment to. SHERYL MCCARTHY: So has the boom been driven more by the need for more affordable housing than what is available in Manhattan. Has it been driven more by that? Then by say the jobs, and so people move over there to work and the whatever. ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: I think that a lot of the early development was really facing west, both literally the backs of those buildings you know are closed off parking structures or whatever. But mentally also, you know, it's one stop on the 7 train its one stop on the E train and so on and so forth to midtown, so those people who were working in Manhattan but living on the waterfront, having you know beautiful waterfront views and so on, at a better price than in Manhattan but a very good product. Over time it's changing, you know. We were talking before about CUNY Law School. The dean, and other senior people at CUNY Law School now live in Long Island City, Jet Blue which is one of our you know really marquee businesses that moved its headquarters to Long Island City, a significant percentage of their work force now lives in Long Island City as well. So it's morphing more into people who live and work in Queens. But I, there's still a predominate group who lives in Queens but work in Manhattan. SHERYL MCCARTHY: The few occasions that I've been in, on the ground in Long Island City I've been a little confused as to what was where. I guess I landed in what was seemed to be a very industrial kind of area. And my question was okay where are all of these high rises that I have heard about? I mean, do the residential, is the residential development taking place in a particular part of Long Island City? Is it all on the river? Or where is it? Or is it all mixed up? ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: Everything. There is a, along the waterfront which was originally all state development, Queens West, and now the city has half of it which is Hunters Point South where they're building an enormous affordable housing component as well, that's all residential. But then you step in a block or so from there and you've got residential mixed in with industrial and you get over to Court Square area where the big Citi Bank building is and again you're getting residential right up against commercial, right up against industrial. Similarly on Queens Plaza which is right underneath the Queensboro bridge as we call it, not the 59th Street Bridge but still Ed Koch, there's residential off the side streets and there's now residential being built right on Queens Plaza. Mixed in with Jet Blue, mixed in with the Department of Health building and others and there's hotels everywhere. Because the residential is obviously only in areas zoned for residential. SHERYL MCCARTHY: I had no idea there was a single hotel in Long Island City, what's more 23. ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: Right. And more on the way and- But the hotels are in both the residential areas and in the industrial areas. So they're everywhere. And they have an interesting mix which is both businesses that you know book, have a standing order, right, with hotels. Whether it's Jet Blue or something else, a local Long Island City business, but also businesses in Manhattan where they constantly have people coming in from all over the world and they will have deals with the hotel. So they have those business travelers. And also people doing their own business obviously. But then they have you know what we call the sort of Orbitz travelers, okay I want to be within a 5 mile radius of Times Square or something and these things pop up that are much cheaper and they're right on the train line. And so there's a whole group of sort of the intrepid bargain seeking travelers who, who are there as well. So it's an interesting kind of mix, a lot of Europeans, and people from all over the world. And one of the things that we're doing is trying to work with the hoteliers and to get those people out of the grove of just going into Manhattan to do everything, to say hey did you know you're right near these museums, there's these great restaurants and other things going on. SHERYL MCCARTHY: Okay. We're going to take a short break but we'll be back with more with Elizabeth Lusskin president of the Long Island City Partnership after this message. ♪ [Theme Music] ♪ SHERYL MCCARTHY: Welcome back to One to One, I'm Sheryl McCarthy of the City University of New York. And I'm talking with Elizabeth Lusskin, president of the Long Island City partnership and executive director of the Long Island City business improvement district. So how much has the population increased during this 30 year or so boom. ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: Well in the 30 year boom we've had probably we've had multiple thousands, under 10,000 units that have been created thus far. And I'd say we're about to more than double that. The Hunters Point South project is going to be I think 5,000 units all on its own. We've got another 5,000 units planned in other areas of Long Island City, and so on. So the adding to the population of sort of the broader Long Island City area depending on how you define it at a minimum is 70,000 people that includes, you know, Queensbridge and so on. And I think that you're going to see, you know, another 50% or so probably coming in one way or another. SHERYL MCCARTHY: What are the housing prices like, relative to Manhattan? ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: Well they're going up. I think, you know it's good that we're getting this large scale affordable and low and moderate income housing project that will help even out the neighborhood a bit. I'd say what most of the apartments that are being constructed if you compare them to sort of a comparable product in Manhattan you'd be paying for, your getting sort of one bedroom more shall we say than you would be so what you would be paying here for a one bedroom, you're getting a two bedroom. SHERYL MCCARTHY: Okay. And it's got to be cheaper than Brooklyn, because Brooklyn has almost caught up with Manhattan. I understand. ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: Although what's happening, just as with the hotels is that the product is getting fancier and fancier. Right, so relative value you know becomes to what, what's your comparable. I'd say the neighborhood has been defined a lot by its, it values, by its relationship to how much it costs to be elsewhere. And it's being defined more by the inherent value of being in Long Island City. SHERYL MCCARTHY: Long Island City as we mentioned before has become this huge art center. How did that happen? And why did that happen? ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: Well it happened for the same reasons that a lot of other things are in Long Island City. Which is flexible affordable space, which is very attractive to artists for their studios and, you know, working artists. There's. it hasn't been identified as an arts district because it isn't, there's a few buildings which are largely artists. But actually artists like tech companies are so sort of honey combed throughout the industrial, because again they were looking for the same kind of space that other kinds of companies like. So there was flexible. SHERYL MCCARTHY: Large spaces with not so much money. ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: Right. And you know column free, and with windows and whatever. And then you had, for example Socrates Sculpture Park and the Noguchi museum, the Isamu Noguchi Museum, which are right next to each other. The artists who began those had their studios there, and then they created museums and this wonderful sculpture park. And various other things, it was opportunistic, cause it was close to Manhattan as well so you can bring people out. But it was this combination of space and location. And the artists, just like there's a lot of people in the design industry whose clients are sprinkled throughout and you want to be able to get back and forth from, so you like both the space and you like the fact that it's so accessible. SHERYL MCCARTHY: Has Long Island City replaced, I guess the artists used to live in downtown Manhattan, which then just became you know, trendy and expensive and they probably could you know make a bundle selling their loft and you know moving someplace else. Has it become the place where artists in the city live, is that where the artists community is now? ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: Well I think that there is an artist's community. I mean I think there are many artists communities. I think there's a long term community of working artists. These are people who make their living as artists. And its and you know they are committed and matured artists in the sense that they're fully fledged in their profession. And so I don't know that it's so much a trend as a, it's just a fact that has developed over time. There's a lot of places to study art, again because the space has lent itself to this and it's so accessible from other places. I don't know, obviously there's always a churning in the artists moving around. Frankly a major challenge for Long Island City is that the arts, the artists and the cultural institutions are part of what is giving Long Island City that value proposition all on its own. Right, that this is a place people want to be. As the area becomes denser, more popular, etc., there's more development. How do you keep flexible affordable space for working artists? And keep those people as part of the community. And this is a challenge that's played out many times across the city. And it's one that is really central to the continuing identity and success of Long Island City. SHERYL MCCARTHY: I've heard a lot about P.S.1 although I've never been there. How did MoMa decide to have a sort of annex if you will in Long Island City? ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: I don't know the entire history as well as people who were there at the time. I know that MoMa was renovating and they started at another location and then took over, this is an old school that's why it's called P.S.1, and I think it was successful and it's become an outlet for sort of more, different kind of art then you find at MoMa and 53rd street. It is incredibly vibrant, they do these wonderful installations. And it attracts really a worldwide audience; it's got a great restaurant, M. Wells Dinette, in it. I'd say the challenge is that, our great gift is that we are so accessible from Manhattan, we have 8 subway lines, we have 12 subway stops it's also a challenge because people can experience Long Island City a very one dimensional way. So for example many people come to PS1, they come out of the subway a block away, they go to PS1, they view, they eat, they come out, they go back on the subway. They never experience the rest of Long Island City. And part of that is the convenience, part of that is that the street scape today doesn't in many areas lend itself to taking a little urban adventure. And the street grid is confusing so in our future plans we really want to work on making that street scape more pedestrian, inviting, and also we've been working with DOT on mapping tools that help people navigate. And we're hoping to develop an app that as I said takes you from just having a way finding tool to a way making tool, and says okay I'm here let me have some fun, let me explore something. SHERYL MCCARTHY: Has there been a big growth in, I mean have they been opening a lot more schools? I mean with this you know residential buildings being built, more schools being built in Long Island City? ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: Yes, the area is, the entire large Long Island City, which I should say even by conservative definition, if you put it onto Manhattan, you'd go from 34th to 86th, from 1st avenue to 10th avenue. So we're talking about a very big geographic area. Within that there's already like 20 high schools and some middle schools and so on. But in the sort of newer areas that were not long term, you know, dense residential like on the waterfront, there's a elementary, a middle, and a high school there. And I think there's a couple of those as well. Excuse me. And I think more are, the population is going to be demanding more and more schools. SHERYL MCCARTHY: I know that joining LaGuardia Community College, I'd heard of it for years but didn't know where it was and now I do, the CUNY Law School recently relocated to Long Island City. And you've seen it, I have not. ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: It's absolutely gorgeous; it's a really amazing facility. It's right at Court Square, which is again where the Citi Bank building, which you can see from everywhere it's a great landmark, and it's in the second building of the Citi Bank complex. So half of the building is Citi Bank and half the building is CUNY Law. Its right on square, there's a lot of residential going in around there. It's a very innovative law school. They're really doing a tremendous amount to make sure that their graduates are a success and the law school actually serves the community as well. SHERYL MCCARTHY: What does Long Island City need that it doesn't have? What are its most pressing needs at this time? ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: Well from a services point of view while we have all this great transportation in and out of Manhattan, we need much better transportation circulating within Long Island City to connect the different parts. And from Brooklyn to Long Island City. There's a lot of traffic back and forth with people that are living, working, etc. so we need- We need that. SHERYL MCCARTHY: So what are we talking about? You're talking about buses, I don't know, what are you talking about? ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: So within Long Island City we need more bus lines, we need more frequent service on some of the bus lines that are there, especially with bus time now when you realize its 20 minutes until the bus is coming, you know. We also need more ferries. Long term maybe there's been proposals for light rail or a trolley or something to get from Brooklyn to Queens and so on. So we need that kind of circulation. We need, certainly in the Queens plaza area we need more service, retail, drug stores, grocery stores, and so and that's going in other areas. On a big macro basis we need, and this is something that we're working towards, to really look at the area comprehensively , its never actually been done, all of the studies in the past were geographically targeted or sector targeted, put it all together say we have this great, unique, mixed use community. I like to use the word authentic really rather than unique, because it grew organically, it's got this mix; industrial, commercial residential, cultural on the transportation grid. It serves the city, but there are pressures on it that could push it into one direction or another. How do we harness that growth in a positive direction? To make sure that we retain all of those elements and that's going to take a variety of tools in the tool box. You know it'll take zoning, it'll take financing, it'll take a lot of good thinking and hard planning. SHERYL MCCARTHY: We got about a minute left. Brooklyn has for a long time been considered the "it" outer borough, is that going to happen for Queens and might Long Island City be the "it" outer borough? Outer area at some point? ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: Well I, you know we love Brooklyn and I'm not going to take anything away from Brooklyn. And I think one of the great things about Long Island City is we don't feel the need to be "it", we are. And I think you'll find that in the same way that cities have a very accommodating and diverse vibe you can kind of be who you are, Long Island City is that way. We've got everything going on and whoever you are, you can find a home there. And it doesn't have to; you don't need to fit into one sort of defined character or another. I think interestingly in the same way that years ago you would hear everybody was moving to Park Slope, or everybody was moving, who was in city government, who was in arts or whatever, and that's moved around. I think parts of Long Island City are becoming like that. So in a quiet way people are all discovering for themselves what a great area it is. And companies, both the existing companies and newer companies are finding that as well. The challenge we have is we're running out of space for companies and we need to deal with that. SHERYL MCCARTHY: Well you certainly made me want to come and explore it and I hope that this conversation will make a lot of our viewers want to do the same thing. ELIZABETH LUSSKIN: Thank you. SHERYL MCCARTHY: We're out of time; I want to thank Elizabeth Lusskin, president of the Long Island City Partnership and executive director of the Long Island City Improvement District, for joining us today. For more information about this organization, go to licpartnership.org and summit.licpartnership.org. For the City University of New York and One to One, I'm Sheryl McCarthy. ♪ [Theme Music] ♪