A year ago today the City Council told a $300 million+ investor, "Thanks, but no thanks." This Sunday,
the Post ran an interesting op ed piece calling the site "an empty sore instead of jobs."
Any casual reader of the ole BD knows where we stand on this issue, and frankly, we took a lot of flack for not falling in line with the groupthink mentality of the NW Bronx. We'd just like to remind everyone about some facts concerning the Armory debacle.
The Armory still remains vacant and a financial liability rather than an asset for the city and the neighborhood. The communications director for Ruben Diaz, John DeSio, states, "According to the City the Kingsbridge Armory costs $1 million a year to maintain." Clearly, this is not an insignificant amount of money.
There still seems to be no clarity on what will happen to the historic site - or even what specifically Ruben Diaz and the task force would want to go there in an ideal world. The task force reportedly has met six times since its inception, according to Mr. DeSio, and they expect to give a report in the spring. When pressed about the Beep's personal vision for the site, Mr. DeSio related the following:
The borough president and the task force agree that efforts to redevelop the Kingsbridge Armory should focus on strategic reuse of the property for a combination of community revitalization, education, and economic development purposes. The borough president would like to see the armory developed into a facility that meets these goals.
I'm not sure I see much specificity in this response. Maybe if we wish really really hard, that unicorn farm with $50K/year jobs with benefits might appear.
One thing that is certain: the 2,200 jobs, even if they were all minimum wage, would have paid Bronxites $33,176,000 (thirty-three million, one hundred and seventy-six thousand dollars!) in just this last year.
It seems this once frequent BD commenter who wrote the following during those heated days last December might want to rethink his statement:
...and since both of you are unabashed whores to related, as if they are the only ones who can save us, you need to know there ARE other plans out there and there ARE other ideas out there. and Guy, i know this is gonna hurt, but you didn't listen the last time, the BP does have a plan B... and even a C and D that you're going to hear about soon.
It seems like the BP didn't have any other plans beyond the shortsighted political expedience of hooting and hollering to promise something he couldn't deliver. The perfect became the enemy of the good and the Armory remains vacant, and no jobs or services have been created from the whole ordeal.
And to those who will decry the fact that Bloomy will be more reluctant to help anything get off the ground at the Armory because of the embarrassing defeat dealt him by Ruben Diaz and the City Council, remember that there are consequences to moral victories, O dear Pyrrhus.
~ErLu
