The RIRA Column

Steve Marcus, RIRA President, is out of town for a couple of weeks so I’m writing the column in his place.

I hope everyone’s holiday was happy and healthy. As we all look toward summer, many of us are anxious to know when our new barbeques will be here. We’re awaiting word from RIOC about them and as soon as we hear we’ll be sure to let everyone know where they’ll be situated. In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to send Herb Berman an email at HBerman@rioc.com asking when we’ll have the new barbeques and where they’re going to be placed.

With relatives visiting this past week, I used some of the parking amenities on the Island and thought I’d remind residents about them (since I almost forgot myself). When the new Sunday parking laws went into effect, parking on Main Street became free on Sundays, but it’s usually impossible to find an open space. However, parking passes are available through your building office for free parking in Motorgate on Sundays between the hours of 11:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. Ask your building manager or doorkeeper for information on how to use this service. Also, if you don’t use Motorgate often, you may not be aware that you can buy prepaid, discounted parking tickets for six-hour and 24-hour intervals. These come in handy when you have guests visiting. You can get the tickets by calling Central Parking Services at 212- 321-7500. They’ll send you a form to fill out and return with your payment.

With the summer coming up, it’s also time for each resident to start thinking about next year’s RIRA elections. Come November, you’ll be asked to vote for someone to represent you or, maybe, you’ll decide to run for the seat yourself. For those of you who may be new to the Island, let me tell you a little about the organization. Every resident of the Island, 18 years or older, is a member of RIRA. They are represented by an elected group called the RIRA Common Council. The Council is made up of representatives from each building. The number of representatives depends on the size of the building. The organization has multiple goals. We try to act as a liaison between the community and the politicians who represent us. We also organize community-wide events and help individual buildings or residents to solve problems when they’re in need of neighborhood support. To the degree that we can, we try to insure adherence to the Island’s General Development Plan. As you can see from some of the new development on the Island, we haven’t been very successful in that effort lately, but we’ll continue to try.

If you want to see the Council in action, please come and sit in on one of our monthly meetings. They’re held at the Good Shepherd Community Center (the church) on the first Wednesday of every month at 8:00 p.m. If you want to get involved in community affairs and donate some of your time to community activities, RIRA might be just the organization for you. The elections aren’t until November, but it’s never too early to start thinking about joining. As a matter of fact, there are some seats that need to be filled right now in some of the buildings so why not come finish out this year’s term and if you like it, run for election in the Fall. It’s your community; the more involved you’re able to become, the better off we’ll all be.

Following up on Steve Marcus’s last column about the possibility that the Art Gallery would be replaced with a Dunkin’ Donuts/Baskin Robbins, the most current information we have is that RIOC is looking for alternate space for Dunkin’ Donuts. I personally hope Main Street never gets that shopping mall look, and I believe that chain stores have that effect. However, I would love to see the vacant storefronts filled with merchants supplying needed services to the community. When I go to Astoria, and other parts of Manhattan, Queens, etc., if I see a store that I’d like to have on the Island, I ask to speak with the manager and see if there’s a possibility that they’d consider relocating or opening up a second location over here. I’ve actually had some luck with this approach and I urge each of you to do the same. When you find a merchant willing to come to the Island, have him/her get in touch with Paul Mas at Jones Lang LaSalle on 212-812-5700 and let Steve Marcus know you’ve done it so we can follow up on the progress. Steve’s e-mail address is SteveAtRIRA@verizon.net.

Until next time, enjoy the warm weather. Roosevelt Island is an especially great place to be when Spring arrives and the trees are in bloom.