In case you haven’t heard, RIOC, asleep at the wheel, welcomed a Monday morning mess. With television production sucking up chunks of Main Street to start the week, the state agency tumbled out of bed long enough to wave them in.
By David Stone
As we reported on Saturday, the NBC series Blacklist made an arrangement with the New York City, leaving RIOC out of the loop, for consuming a lot of Main Street parking. The takeover began on Sunday with filming set for monday.
Areas scheduled for production vehicles only are the entire Southtown strip along the east section of Main Street. Where all the entrances and exits are.
Also lost, all parking along Main from 10 to 40 River Road. As pointed out by resident Raye Schwartz in a letter to RIOC president/CEO Shelton J. Haynes, this creates real dangers.
An appeal to common sense…
“Once again, RIOC has not only dropped the ball but has endangered many children in the way this filming was announced to our community,” Schwartz wrote. “There are two schools which bring children in to the island, either by school bus or parents driving them here in the morning and picking them up when the school day ends.”
She continued, “The fact that this notice was sent Friday night, suggests that the directors at either PS 217 and The Child School did not receive it early enough to make needed arrangements for modifications for ensuring safe arrival and dismissal of the students and faculty.
“Did your RIOC staff make any needed safety provisions? Will your Public Safety staff take time off from issuing parking tickets for the city and assist the schools? Based on this enclosed notice I would think probably not!”
There is no evidence of Haynes interrupting his weekend by answering resident concerns.
Of greater interest for RIOC, the New York State Shelton J. Haynes Parking Area goes unscathed. Space for the president/CEO’s huge gas guzzler is safe.
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Stack Work Advances While Answers Do Not
On June 17 and 18, HPD told the first meeting of the Roosevelt Island Steam Plant Demolition Community Advisory Group that smokestack demolition had no projected start date. Residents and the CAG would receive at least five business days’ advance notice once a date was set. Scaffolding around the stacks could not proceed until soil removal and backfill were complete and the area stabilized.
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