MARKET WATCH COLUMNIST
“Who Wants to Drive Everywhere?” Ellis Henican Sunday Column, Newsday, 5-31-09
Is it still the suburbs if you don’t need a car?
That epistemological question lies at the very core of the debate over Long Island’s two most fascinating development proposals – the Lighthouse project around Nassau Coliseum and western Suffolk’s Heartland Town Square.
What stirs such passion isn’t just the projects’ scale, which is large and larger. It’s the fundamental challenge they pose to the whole 20th-century notion of places like Long Island – and the First Official Commandment of the Suburbs: To live here, you have to have a car.
Well, what if you didn’t?
What if the homes and stores and offices were built close enough to walk to? What if density was treated like a virtue, not a threat? What if someone could figure out how to house the children who grew up here, at a price they could afford, without living forever in Mom and Dad’s basement or moving far away for good?
That would be a visionary worth listening to.
Three hundred people turned up Thursday night at the Sonderling High School Center in Brentwood for a lively discussion of Heartland. Developer Gerald Wolkoff presented his mixed-up ideas for the former site of the Pilgrim Psychiatric Center in Brentwood. He answered the usual NIMBY questions about parking, sewers and roads. No doubt, some of those concerns are genuine.
But isn’t this also true? The single-family sprawl can’t go on forever. The traffic can’t just keep getting worse. There has to be more than one way to live in the suburbs. At some point, the kids will move away if they can’t afford to live here. And walking never killed anyone.
IMPULSE CONTROL
1. Alleged Rudy harasser John McCluskey
2. Difficult bachelor Michael Lohan
3. Wobbly monogamists Jon and Kate
4. Apartment fixer-upper Bernie Kerik
5. Reporter insulter Mike Bloomberg
CRANK IT UP: Despite personnel changes and tough times in the emotional-rock field, the Rockville Centre band known as Taking Back Sunday just received a glowing write-up in Entertainment Weekly: “On ‘New Again,’ the emo survivors manage to reinvent themselves as mainstreamo shredders . . . Proof it’s possible to grow without growing up.” Go, Adam!
POWER PLAY: Pennsylvania-based PPL is selling two 79.9-megawatt power plants to Japan’s J-Power – and why should we care? Because those two monsters (an oil-fired plant in Brookhaven, a gas-fired plant in Brentwood) have a single customer: The Long Island Power Authority. Let me know if your Sony stuff works any better after the $135-million sale goes through.
I KNOW YOU: She’s the YouTube sensation “Obama Girl.” But Amber Lee Ettinger is actually a multifaceted actress and digital-branding role model, a walking, talking exemplar of star creation circa 2008-09. At a breakfast Tuesday, she’ll describe “Selling Yourself in the New Digital Age.” Other testimonials from Ben Relles of BarelyPolitical.com, Norm Golden of 50todeath.com and relationship guide Andrea Syrtash. Details at SobelMedia.com.
ASKED AND UNANSWERED: “Governor Levy”? Did someone say “Governor Levy”? . . . Head still hurting, Angie? Don’t rub “Salt” in the wound . . . Blue whales? Seventy miles off LI? Suddenly, retired lobstermen are running whale-watching tours! . . . You’re not sweating the “strepitoso,” are you, Zach? What’s the chance those spelling bee judges could spell “Zagorski”? . . . Liking the sound of Suozzi’s New Suburbia – but “cool downtown HICKSVILLE”? . . . Before the Shinnecock casino ends up at Belmont, do the live thoroughbreds get a vote? Do “squatters’ rights” apply to horses too? . . . Was Howard Weitzman just a little irritated with the Nassau Community College gas guzzlers? He compared the college’s vehicle-control system (unfavorably) to SafetyTown’s? Oh, and how did the folks at Eisenhower Park feel about that? . . . Shouldn’t TLC just face facts and change the name of the show: “Jon & Kate Plus 8 . . . Plus 1”? Or is “Plus 8 . . . Plus 2” more like it? Either equation adds up to trouble . . . Mira, 16 percent of LI kids are now Hispanic, 22 percent nationwide! You think Republicans may come to regret the Sotomayor attacks? . . . Did Toys ‘R’ Us pay too much for FAO Schwarz? The high-end emporium was never known for its bargains. Just ask the toy soldier out front . . . Will Sarah Palin turn up June 7 at Flowerfield in St. James for the Independent Group Home Living Gala? If a visit from the Down syndrome mom can help the cause of disabled kids and adults, why not? . . . Three shares of GM won’t buy a gallon of gas? I’m no Wall Street whiz, but I’m guessing that isn’t good . . . Quick show of hands: How many homeowners agree with Assessor Thaddeus Jankowski that Nassau assessments are fair? Don’t all wave at once, please.
E-mail ellis@henican.com. Follow at twitter.com/henican
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