Growth in Eastern Queens Causes Concern
From the Queens Chronicle
New Homes A Burden On The Neighborhood, Residents Say
by Theresa Juva , Assistant Editor
Ever since a cluster of two-family homes have replaced the wooded area at the former dead-end of 132nd Avenue in Springfield Gardens, there have been problems.
Residents said cars speed down the street and the road bears long, jagged cracks, the result of rumbling construction trucks when the homes were built earlier this year. They worry the damage from the pavement has reached the street’s sewer system.
This is just the latest chapter in the long saga to save Springfield Gardens’ dead-end streets from development.
In 2003, Warren McCain, president of the Queens Community Council, an umbrella organization of two dozen block associations, began the fight.
It was then residents on 132nd and 133rd avenues learned their quiet streets –– punctuated at the ends with pastoral views and shielded from the bustle of the nearby boulevards –– would be uprooted.
The expanse of trees they believed was all parkland was in fact partly privately owned by Rochdale Village, which sold its parcel to developers.
The community protested and lost.
In 2004, trucks tore through the forest, laid down cement and 176th Street was born.
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