[ardecila]

I can't possibly believe that it's EASIER for the city to force hundreds of businesses out of Willets Point than it is to strike a deal with the Mets where the parking lots become garages and the rest of the land gets developed.

The city already agreed to subsidize the Mets for hundreds of millions when they agreed to help fund CitiField.... so now the city will lose all that land from the property tax rolls. If the city wanted, they could have made their financing deal contingent on a redevelopment of Shea's parking lots into a combination neighborhood and garage complex.

But no, everyone jumped at the chance to replace Shea on the taxpayer dime, and now the city has to scrabble with Willets Point to replace the lost tax revenues at CitiField. It's good to know that even New York makes stupid, bumbling decisions, despite its unprecedented revival in the last decade.

The other irritating point here is the actions of the MTA, which has been hoarding land here and using it extremely unproductively. I really don't see why they need a massive tract of land along Flushing Creek in order to add one station onto the line. I'm really hoping that they intend to use it as a replacement for Corona Yard and not an expansion, so that the current site can be redeveloped later.