Story of a Street – Urban Omnibus
Joseph Heathcott, a Jackson Heights resident, urbanist, and professor at the New School, views the conflict as only natural. “Queens has always been a laboratory for multiple groups to figure out how to get along in complicated urban circumstances,” he said. “While figuring things out, people argue.” Joseph leads a “Queens is the Future” walking tour that examines how America will come to look more like Queens as it becomes an increasingly plural society. The catchphrase points to the borough’s status as the most diverse county in the entire US. And Jackson Heights, home to people of more than 70 nationalities, speaking 167 languages, is celebrated as the most diverse part of Queens. Having grown out of this dense, multiethnic, socioeconomically diverse neighborhood encompassing divergent ideas, the 34th Avenue Open Street is at the vanguard of a decades-long movement for streets that prioritize people rather than cars. A new chapter in the evolution of city streets is unfolding here.
Ricardo Pacheco has a morning ritual: he drives his granddaughter to school in Bayside, comes back to Jackson Heights, gets breakfast from Janet’s food truck (“the BLTs are out of this world”), and hangs out on the corner of 34th Avenue and 90th Street, observing the Open Street.
“Cops tend to see things other people don’t,” said Ricardo, a retired police officer who, after serving 26 years in the NYPD, has developed a habit of observing, identifying and fixing problems. “The other day I saw a scooter speed down here and almost hit a woman.” He notices the dangerous situations created when people violate traffic laws on the Open Street, but mostly he’s hanging out and talking to neighbors.
Since retiring in 2016, he’s devoted time to his three grandchildren and to community service, which keeps him busier than ever. Currently he’s president of his co-op board, which represents 360 units; president of the advisory board for the nonprofit Selfhelp’s local Naturally Occurring Retirement Community (NORC), which provides services to seniors that help them age in their own homes; and president of the Jackson Heights Coops Alliance, where he represents community members who are less than thrilled with the Open Street — people he says are not being heard.
“I didn’t ask to live in a gated community,” Ricardo said. “The closing of 26 city blocks will undoubtedly bring about a gated community for the privileged few.”
Ricardo says the DOT failed to reach out to the co-ops on the eastern end of 34th Avenue when making decisions about the Open Street. “Apparently from 86th Street and up, we don’t matter,” he said, citing the disparity between the wealthier western side of Jackson Heights and more working-class eastern side. Ricardo’s friend Karen Taylor, Director of the NORC that serves over 1,500 seniors in these co-ops, said that although the DOT conducted outreach, their communications were ineffective — taking place online exclusively, they left out older adults without email addresses, who didn’t know to check the DOT’s website. The NORC’s senior community was very civically engaged and regularly attended in-person meetings pre-pandemic, Karen said, but in the spring of 2020, when the Open Street was initiated, there was no communication via the channels where they usually received information.
Ricardo feels the DOT should have reached out to co-ops and building management companies, put up flyers, and administered a paper survey in addition to the online survey. He’s frustrated with the DOT and local politicians. “We tried to talk to them about Open Streets and see if we could have a seat at the table and be included, as opposed to being ignored, and we hit walls,” he said. “You changed my quality of life, you changed the way things were when I moved here, and yet you never asked me.”
He stresses that the concept of Open Streets is good, but that the way it’s being managed isn’t working. He thinks it would be better on a commercial rather than a residential street, operating for less hours. He does see good things on 34th Avenue, like the occasional mariachi and dance performances. “It’s just that there’s a time and a place for everything. And 26 blocks, seven days a week, 13 hours a day with barriers and barricades is not the answer.”
In October 2021, Ricardo, along with other co-op presidents, was moved to create a formal group to advocate for the buildings’ concerns. They formed the Jackson Heights Coops Alliance, incorporating as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit. “We will address our concerns when it comes to Open Streets and why it is that we don’t like it as is,” Ricardo said.
One June morning in 2022, he greeted Janet, got coffee, then leaned against a railing on the corner, settling in to observe. Just then, a FedEx truck parked next to a barricade, obstructing the crosswalk and creating a blind spot. The delivery man began piling boxes onto the crosswalk, loaded them on a dolly and carted them down 34th Avenue. “This is what we’re talking about,” Ricardo said, gesturing to the truck and to an older man slowly maneuvering around it to cross the street. “That senior is going behind the truck with his walker, and if a scooter comes, he can’t see it,” he sighed. “They didn’t plan this through.”