Editorial
Still No Plan. Why Is That?

Under RIOC President Robert H. Ryan, the mantra was, "Make Roosevelt Island a destination" – a place other New Yorkers and tourists will want to visit. But years after Ryan put that idea out there, Roosevelt Island still doesn’t have even the most rudimentary accoutrement of a destination, which would be signs at the Tram station to tell visitors there’s a here here.

Many of the things that would make Roosevelt Island a distinct destination would contribute to making it a better community in which to live. Two ideas, by way of example:

• A weekend-long Arts & Crafts Fair, Spring and Fall, spread out along the west promenade – free, at first, to attract the exhibitors, and perhaps even with awards. Ultimately, it might produce income for the Island by charging for booth space.

• A weekend-long portable Summer every-kind-of-music festival (perhaps with dance), spread out to every possible performance space on the Island – from Lighthouse Park to Southpoint Park and including Good Shepherd Plaza, Capobianco Field, the Eastwood amphitheatre – and perhaps a drum and bugle corps competition on Firefighter’s Field (near the Tram station). Some events free, some with a charge.

But we have to ask ourselves, and think seriously about the answers: Do we want these things in our community? Do we want to encourage tourism and accept the inconveniences that accompany periodic influxes of tourists? Trellis would be jammed, of course, and traffic-control might be difficult. Hit the wrong weekend, and there might not be subway service, so the Tram would be jammed. On the other hand, coordination with the MTA should be possible, and traffic can be controlled and diverted to free-for-the-day Motorgate parking. Food can be served outdoors to expand capacity, and porta-johns can handle that basic need for visiting crowds.

In short, we could make it work. But is it what we want?

If it is, it should influence other thinking. For example:

The New York Times reported two Wednesdays back that Nantucket – another Island in another place – has voted in an ordinance banning most franchises and chain stores from its downtown area. The reasoning, explained by the bookstore owner who proposed the ban: "If, when you get here, you find the same thing [you have] at home, it reduces the experience."

Makes sense, doesn’t it? It makes sense that nobody’s going to come to Roosevelt Island to buy Dunkin’ Donuts, but they might come for a specialized antique shop or a rare-book event, or for a writers’ conference. Destination means there must be something attracting people here – something to discover and enjoy – not the same routine stuff that visitors can find back home or in Manhattan.

And some would argue that the things that would make the Island a unique destination would also make it a better place to live... while others would prefer the quiet of a community rarely disrupted by visitors from the outside world. Call this the Brigadoon approach, or the Fourth-of-July-is-enough-already crowd.

Or perhaps a quiet and peaceful community can co-exist with location-specific tourist activity – localized, for example, to Southpoint Park, as has been the case on the Fourth of July.

Speaking of the Fourth, there’s a question of whether an effort should be made to leverage the crowds who come here for the fireworks. In 2000 on Indepedence Day, The WIRE sponsored a big-band concert in Good Shepherd Plaza, the theory being that such events might help visitors make a day of it. There was a financial loss, but the real killer for any similar events was the difficulty working through the RIOC bureaucracy; simply parking musicians’ cars became an issue, for example. Others, trying to capitalize on Roosevelt Island’s potential as a performance venue, have experienced the same can’t-do attitude and tangles of red tape.

But the purpose of these musings is not to bash RIOC yet again for the way its staff can make things difficult for residents who want to bring something special to the Island. The purpose, instead, is to ask the questions at the top:

When Roosevelt Island was first conceived, the finest architects and community planners were brought in. Red tape was cut, and the concept for a community laid down, followed by a series of focused approaches to creating that community. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a plan, and much of it made Roosevelt Island the marvelously mixed home that it is today: Mixed incomes, mixed physical abilities, mixed races and nationalities.

But...

But under the long reign of George Pataki, Roosevelt Island has had three RIOC presidents – four if you count the period under Acting President Pat Siconolfi – and none has taken the steps necessary to reconceive Roosevelt Island in the image of Century 21 – well, unless you mean the real-estate Century 21. That not what is meant here.

What is meant here is that sure, the ideas of the 1960’s, especially the ones that didn’t pan out, need some 21st Century revision.

DL