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Comment by SippinLean | Hacker News Reader

> Long Island City is a mixed-use community where arts and industry intersect

It's mostly empty warehouses, housing projects, and luxury condos. There's very little in terms of culture or even basic needs, like grocery stores.

> Long Island City has some of the best transit access in New York City, with 8 subway lines, 13 bus lines, commuter rail, a bike-sharing service, and ferries serving the area

Realistically it's the densely overcrowded 7 train, getting worse each year, with no relief in sight. Once the L shuts down in 2019 the G will be absolutely overrun.

> and LaGuardia and JFK airports are in close proximity

Getting to LGA involves taking a train to a bus, by car it's a breeze, JFK is an hour away by train.

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This comment is skewing what LIC is. LIC is a neighborhood in its infancy because it was rezoned from primarily industrial to residential/commercial only a few years ago. But it's basically the perfect neighborhood for the city to grow into. In defense of the neighborhood I lived in for years:

> There's very little in terms of culture

There are literally 100s of artists who work out of LIC. Many of those "empty warehouses" are actually art studios full of spaces rented out by artists. It's the densest concentration of artists in the outer boroughs, and probably beats out 90% of Manhattan too. Check out the LIC art walk, or the LIC art open, or PS1. I agree with the lack of basic amenities (see: neighborhood in infancy), but lack of culture is an absurd accusation.

> Realistically it's the densely overcrowded 7 train, getting worse each year, with no relief in sight

Why not mention the E, N, W lines, which feed a lot of Queens and more of Manhattan than the 7? LIC (especially Court Square) is a convenient neighborhood to commute into, if it's nothing else. Also, LGA and JFK are both straight shots on the highway (15 and 30 minutes respectively) and JFK is easy by subway+airtrain. This beats out most of the rest of the city, any other criticism should be pointed towards the placement of the airports.

> There are literally 100s of artists who work out of LIC.

*were

Beyond MOMA PS1, whose influence on the neighborhood is hard to understate, there has been a lot of independent art and theater projects in the area. (RIP Five Points.) Food wise, there's M.Wells, Mu Ramen, and a handful of other Michelin ranked restaurants with easy access to Queens' wide array of diverse food options. It also has the probably highest ratio of breweries to people of any neighborhood in New York. And there's the largest rock climbing gym in the city, plus a separate BKB branch.

Before I moved out to SF for work, I was an adamant believer that LIC was the most underrated neighborhood in New York. (And I did not live in the eye sore condos.) From Amazon's standpoint, I think they nailed it. New York's tech scene is already growing and the Cornell Tech campus is a short walk from LIC. Unfortunately, I don't think the small art scene that broke out of Brooklyn will survive Amazon's reign.

I'm aware of the zoning history, I'm a former resident as well. Good counterpoints, all. I think "the perfect neighborhood for the city to grow into" is an optimistic and accurate description.

>It's the densest concentration of artists in the outer boroughs

Surely this crown belongs to Bushwick, but LIC is not entirely devoid of arts and culture (Flux Factory being an example of a repurposed warehouse you describe).

I am not sure I agree with this assessment.

Where are Amazon employees going to live? Probably not out on Queens Boulevard on the 7/E/F/M/R so they'll be taking the train in the opposite direction. If they live on Long Island, they can take LIRR to Hunterspoint Ave (infrequent service, but demand can change that). If they live in New Jersey or in MNR territory, they'll take the train to Manhattan and then take the subway in the opposite direction from the main flow. If they live in Manhattan or Brooklyn, they're taking the train in the reverse peak direction; trains that are largely empty today because very few people do the reverse commute.

Similarly, JFK is 15 minutes to Jamaica on LIRR and 10 minutes on the Airtrain from there to the terminal. LGA... not super great. Probably take the 7/E/F/M/R to Jackson Heights/Roosevelt Ave. and transfer to the express bus (my preferred way of getting to LGA and I live in Brooklyn).

Finally, as I understand it they are going to use office space in the Citi tower... which is already built and I assume has had tenants throughout its life. So the transit problems were already understood.

All in all, I see this whole thing as completely non-newsworthy. 30,000 employees is nothing compared to the 1 million that already commute in to NYC from the suburbs and the 5 million that already take the subway.

I might be wrong, but are you suggesting getting to LGA from LIC is ...inconvenient? I think in all of NY there is no relationship between neighborhood and airport that would be better? Not sure about public transport since I would think everybody would take a lyft/uber/taxi from LIC to LGA. It's 10min and cheap.

> I would think everybody would take a lyft/uber/taxi from LIC to LGA. It's 10min and cheap.

And when were you taking this magical taxi, 2AM?

Google Maps put the time at 23 mins by car right now. Still an incredibly easy and cheap Lyft ride.

ha... it never works out that way.

not after Amazonians move in to that city atleast !

LGA itself tends to be inconvenient. Getting there from LIC is no worse than from anywhere else, but you're still ending up at LGA. The construction crews sincerely apologize for any unexpected convenience you may experience.

This need not be a thread battle over airport commute times, but I've made the trip from LIC/Astoria to JFK many times and even with a good amount of train luck it roughly takes an hour door to door via public transit. In no situation has it been on the order of 30 minutes.

Deja Vu all over again

I spend a lot of time passing through in this neighborhood, and can mostly confirm this.

In fact, about those luxury condos and housing projects… they're _very_ new, popping up within the past two years and more coming all the time. I’ve been wondering for years what kind of people make the sort of money to afford these places and would also _want_ to live in that area… now I wonder if this decision wasn't made long ago, and word was carefully leaked to various developers to get the housing ready.

It’s not enough to store 25,000 workers, but it’s a lot. Maybe I’m naive but I feel like the immediate area can contain this, with minimal spillover to Manhattan and Brooklyn. (Like, if the workers want to. The area is definitely not the kind of hipster chic or glamour chic or any chic that people come to New York for.)

The development in LIC wasn't about Amazon in particular, but amazon is choosing that location for the same reason. People were given huge tax breaks to redevelop LIC.

LIC is one of the few places New York NIMBYs allowed development

    >  ... the immediate area can contain this, with minimal spillover to Manhattan and Brooklyn.

I think if Amazon ends up building there (and that's still far from a given at such a scale) employees will end up residing all over the place. Just drop a pin and take a radius that is as large as humanely possible for a daily commute.

People in high paying jobs are often willing to make huge sacrifices in commute-time to land a desirable job while keeping the housing situation that suits them. There are folks with absolutely insane commutes in the NYC area, will Amazon employees will be any different?

I highly doubt this was leaked to developers, I think this was developers realizing that long island city was within close proximity to Manhattan and people want luxury rentals without the price of paying for one in Manhattan.

This is exactly why my partner and I live there. It's cheaper, cleaner, and generally calmer than Manhattan. Plus, we have an extraordinary view of the Manhattan skyline from a terrace we could NEVER afford in Manhattan.

>>now I wonder if this decision wasn't made long ago, and word was carefully leaked to various developers to get the housing ready

I don't know about this but for years now (around ten years now) I've heard about developers trying to transform locations that used to be all factories into residential neighborhoods. Slowly but surely this has been happening all along Brooklyn's riverside, which used to be dominated by factories.

[1] https://www.rentcafe.com/blog/rental-market/brooklyn-skyline...

[2] https://ny.curbed.com/2018/8/9/17667488/new-york-domino-park...

[3]https://www.wnyc.org/story/after-years-delays-sunset-park-re...

The groundwork for the redevelopment of LIC was laid in the City's failed bid for the 2012 Olympic Games. While the bid failed, Bloomberg continued to push for redevelopment and IIRC lead some rezoning. Would not surprise me if developers started buying up land or ground leases around 2004–2005 and held onto them for a few years.

The Olympic Village was to be on Hunter's Point.

Vernon Blvd and some of the areas closer to Greenpoint are pretty lively, but you're mostly right about the emptiness. Biking through LIC can be kind of spooky (although not actually dangerous), and LIC is where a lot of "fight under abandoned bridge" scenes are filmed in NYC these days.

The M and E trains all go to LIC at Court Square or the station you take the moving sidewalk to. Depending on where the offices are, the N, Q, and R could all be closer than the 7. I feel worse for the renters in Greenpoint or Astoria, where many workers are going to go depending on the office location, than I do for the ones in LIC. Either way, this will hopefully also cause MTA to re-extend the G train to Jackson Heights.

They'll be using the Citi Building, which is a few minutes' walk from the stations you cited.

The 7 and the G are not as important if the Amazon people live in many parts of Queens instead of Manhattan or hipster parts of Brooklyn. As I'm sure many will, since it's currently one of the cheaper areas of the city (Astoria and LIC aside).

LGA would be a quick cab or Uber ride for most people, well within Amazon employee affordability range.

JFK would be comparatively quick by cab/Uber or yeah about 60 minutes by transit. That's par for the course for major metro area airports, certainly including Amazon's hometown of Seattle.

This could be what LIC actually needs. It has all this new housing, but it feels like a ghost town. So now there will be all this demand for local amenities that could transform the area. Still unsure if this will be beneficial in the long term or not, but will be interesting to see how it plays out.

I'm still waiting for some decent restaurants. There are precious, precious few.

That's sort of the norm in an area like this I think. When the Seaport in Boston started to be redeveloped amenities were pretty sparse for a while. (To be sure a lot of development was initially around the convention center and adjoining hotels.) These days the restaurant situation is decent but it probably took a good 10 years.

If a lot of Amazon employees end up living in Manhattan, they'll be doing a reverse commute, which is probably a good thing for everyone. As to LGA, remember that it can't have direct flights to the West Coast (e.g.: Seattle...) for historical reasons. Maybe this will help rectify the situation.

There are several factors why LGA has a 1500 miles flight radius restriction (with Denver being the only grandfathered exception), but the primary one is due to the length of the runways unable to cope with larger planes on cross-country routes.

MOMA PS1 is in LIC. I wouldn't call it culturally devoid.

Also the Noguchi Museum (can't escape that man's coffee tables!) and the Socrates Sculpture park.

and Museum of the Moving Image

It's the 7, G, E, M, R, N, and W. Queens and Queensboro Plazas are only a couple blocks from the Citi building. I agree though - this happening during the L train shutdown will absolutely nuke the G. The E and 7 are already at capacity. The M and R have a good bit of room, though. As for the N and W, they also still have a good bit of capacity, it's just a shame, because rents in Astoria were just starting to go down a bit :/

There's a reason that it's called the "L" train.

A quarter of it is underground, and it's by no means the only elevated train in New York, nor even the first.

I think the GP was referencing "taking the L" where the "L" stands for "loss/lose":

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Take%20the%2...

Yes.

The G is nowhere close to its maximum capacity: It currently only runs 1/2 length trains, and the frequency is much less than what could be supported if there were more demand. Even during the L train shutdown the G should be fine as long as the MTA increases service appropriately, which they have stated they will do.

The real chokepoints for the G will be the transfers to Manhattan-bound trains: to the E at Court Square and to the A/C at Hoyt-Schermerhorn. Those stations will be way overloaded, and the MTA hasn't announced anything that would mitigate this significantly.

However, Amazon-bound commuters shouldn't contribute significantly to this, since they will be exiting the station at Court Square, not transferring. Workers commuting in on the E/M from deeper in Queens might have some issues getting off the train in a very crowded station, but at least they won't be contributing to the capacity problem on the way to Manhattan.

Even with the test trains it's it's spotty at best. I work off Greenpoint which is 2 stops to court sq and frequently the trains are backed up/delayed or by the time they arrive it's a clusterfuck.

I can't imagine what's going to happen then the L actually shuts down and people no option but to take the G.

Strongly disagree about culture and basic needs, I have two grocery stores walking distance to me (urban market, food cellar) and several delis/pharmacies, the 7 is closest but the E and M are subway options from Court Square with the N/W from Queensboro, there's a great park (Gantry), plenty of art studios, a few museums (MOMA PS1, Museum of Moving Image a few minutes away), a quick walk/uber to Astoria or Greenpoint for other nightlife or food.

Considering Amazon helped pay for the South Lake Union streetcar, I imagine that this announcement will expedite the approvals for and the construction of the BQX street car.

Amazon should pay for putting that underground instead.

The BQX shouldn't exist at all. None of the parallel bus lines are anywhere near crowded, and the parallel subway line could easily have the car lengths and train frequency doubled.

Even the city's own, goosed up business case looks poor. The conversation has shifted from "let's fund this with only property taxes" to "let's fund this with public money because this will never pay for itself."

https://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20180830/REAL_ESTATE/1...

>[...] the parallel subway line could easily have the car lengths and train frequency doubled.

What do you mean by car lengths? I thought all nyc subway trains had the same # of cars

Wow so that’s how they got the money for that. Can somebody tell me what the point of those streetcars are? They’re just slow buses that are limited to tracks.

I think this is a misimpression. About half the funding came from various government agencies, and about half from a special assessment on property near the line. The main owner along the corridor was Vulcan (Paul Allen), who rented a lot of space to Amazon, but as far as I know at the time (~2007) Amazon didn't own any property along the line.

> It's mostly empty warehouses, housing projects, and luxury condos. There's very little in terms of culture or even basic needs, like grocery stores.

You just described the current South Lake Union headquarters.

> Realistically it's the densely overcrowded 7 train

The N is a 10 minute walk to most of Long Island City (source: used to take the N to Manhattan every day while living in LIC).

> housing projects

I have spent a ton of time in LiC and as far as I can tell, there are none. Chelsea where Google is, has more housing projects. Housing projects aren't really an issue, but clearly you are trolling or clueless.

It's home to Queensbridge the largest housing project in the city.

It's actually the largest housing project in the western hemisphere.

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