Roosevelt Island wayfinding signs, installed by Hudson Related in 2018, were always controversial. And it’s worse because flaws ignored then matured and worsened.
By David Stone
Say you’ve arrived on Roosevelt Island for the first time, and like many travelers, you need a little cash. Just off the subway on Main Street, you’re in luck because there’s a convenient map, right there.
Ah, yes, there it is on the wayfinding sign. Amalgamated bank is just up the street.
So, off you go, and after passing one vacant storefront after another, you find Amalgamated right where it should be.
But it’s papered over, closed up. Of course, there are two ATMs left behind. Being a stranger in this community, you hesitate at pulling out your wallet and showing your cash after using an unprotected cash machine.
When Hudson Related failed to fix flaws in the design for their Roosevelt Island wayfinding signs, they created situations like this one and more.
Built in design flaw…
Some saw it right away. The maps, set up in various places along Main Street, were stagnant. In some ways, they were out of date on arrival.
Riverwalk Bar & Grill shut down before the wayfinding signs gathered dust. And Hudson Related firmed up worst suspicions by not amending the maps right away.
Because Hudson Related never enacted any plans, if they had any, for updating the Roosevelt Island wayfinding signs, the situation got worse.
Is it just penny-pinching?
As one longtime Island observer told us recently, “David (Hudson president Kramer) is proud to not spend an extra cent on the Island.”
Is that it?
Why hasn’t RIOC given him a nudge? Aren’t they in charge of the place?
Roosevelt Island wayfinding signs today…
Hudson Related’s neglect is not confined to out of date maps. On their own website, boasting about the successes of Shops On Main, they list BubbleCool, closed over a year now, as a success.
Oh, and here’s a good one: “Café Eleanor” is another winner.
What?
- Five-Alarm Flushing House Fire Leaves Elderly Woman Dead and 19 Responders Injured
- Far Rockaway House Fire and Shooting Leaves Two Dead
- Chain-Snatching Spree in Queens Prompts Precinct Coordination and Simple Safety Steps
- 140 Rentals Proposed for Mixed-Use Building at 50-01 Queens Boulevard
- Sgt. Angel Rampersad’s legacy and Ozone Park’s vigil
With diligence like that, it’s no wonder they can’t get the maps right. And here’s a laugher…
“Shops on Main is now 90% leased,” they brag. Take a walk on Main Street and decide for yourself about the integrity of that one.
Not to belabor a point, but there’s more, and if I were PupCulture, I’d be pissed. PupCulture really is a success that’s toughed its way through the coronavirus.
But they’re absent from the outdated maps Hudson Related parked on Main Street, over two years ago, then left growing more inaccurate, year after year.
Who Does This?
At the June 18 meeting of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation’s Real Estate Development Advisory Committee, President and Chief Executive Officer B.J. Jones acknowledged that there had been no progress finding a tenant for the long-discussed medical space on Main Street. Hudson/Related Realty LLC had told him that filling the space, along with other vacant storefronts, was proving more difficult than expected.
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