PHOTO: This year, Mayor de Blasio delivered the State of the City address in primetime at Lehman College in the Bronx. Photo Courtesy of Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
By Michael V. Cusenza
New York City is the sum of its boroughs.
And Mayor Bill de Blasio, in his State of the City speech last Thursday evening, pledged to work “for our neighborhoods” that give those boroughs their identities.
Speaking at Lehman College in the Bronx, de Blasio used the annual address to report on the City’s progress over the past two years, identify challenges, and offer opportunities and solutions he and his administration have vowed to implement to strengthen communities on which the five boroughs are built.
In outlining his 2016 agenda, de Blasio talked about “focusing on a series of groundbreaking initiatives targeting inequality, our quality of life, and New York City’s positioning as a global leader in the 21st century economy.”
De Blasio said the concept is “One New York, Working for Our Neighborhoods.”
“This vision means we have to use the tools of government to fight against inequality – and to fight for a strong future for all our families. It means we need to manage government effectively for a safe, clean, economically strong city with an improving quality of life. And it means we must innovate for the future in all our neighborhoods, always pushing the envelope for new ways to keep New York the greatest global city of the 21st century,” he added.
In that vein, one of the more ambitious initiatives outlined in the State of #OurCity is the Brooklyn Queens Connector: de Blasio’s proposal for an urban streetcar that would tie together waterfront neighborhoods “from Sunset Park in Brooklyn to Astoria in Queens.”
For the same fare as a single-ride MetroCard, the new transit line would connect isolated neighborhoods to new job centers and open up opportunity for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, according to de Blasio. The BQX will link to 13 NYCHA developments with more than 40,000 tenants – roughly 10 percent of the city’s public housing residents.
Still, some didn’t get on board the $2.5 billion proposal. Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder (D-Howard Beach) said it “does little to end the transit deserts that plague our communities. Our families in Rockaway and across the city would be much better served if this money went towards reactivating the Rockaway Beach Rail Line. I continue to urge City Hall to support the line’s reactivation and complete our community’s transformation that the downtown revitalization plan is sure to spark.”
De Blasio also announced that New York is working to become the first city in the country to create a retirement savings program for private-sector employees. Contributions would be exclusively from employees, who would have the ability to change their rate or opt out of the program as they wish. Employees would also be able to transfer the savings account from job to job, according to the mayor, who went on to note that the City would undertake a robust outreach and education effort on the program.
De Blasio also promised to expand the Graffiti-Free NYC program and add power washing of sidewalks in heavily trafficked commercial corridors in all five boroughs, including all Industrial Business Zones and other targeted sections, such as Hylan Boulevard on Staten Island, Church Avenue in Brooklyn, the Downtown Flushing Transit Hub in Queens, Jerome-Gun Hill in the Bronx, Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and 125th Street in Manhattan. Graffiti-Free NYC will remove graffiti from private and public structures, power wash sidewalks, and remove blight from street furniture.
michael@theforumnewsgroup.com
