Is This The End Of The Firestation Lot Story?

 

Monday, 3 pm, Washington Street:  Now that HPD has gotten every last truck, valeted car, dumpster and piece of machinery out of what remains of the city-owned Firestation lot in preparation of DPW's massive street snow removal tonight, you have to wonder one thing.

What will HPD and DPW do next winter when nearly the entirety of the lot has been turned into a parking lot for the Pocketbook Hudson business complex thanks to the 5-year, $30,000/year lease agreement the city just recently signed with PBH?  And the following winter?  How will HPD remove parked cars then so that DPW can have ample space to dump all their snow after a major snowfall?  Will they once again use wooden orange NO PARKING signs?  No, they will not, because we just signed that lot over to Sean Roland and Gabe Katz!  They will be the ones posting signs regarding parking in the lot, not HPD or DPW. On January 1st and for the following five years (at least) nearly the entire lot will be theirs.  Not ours!  Theirs!

The sight of the HPD Supervisor SUV idling in the middle of the emptied lot this afternoon was the perfect cap to this whole rather pathetic story that HUDseen has been telling for the past week.  The officer inside was not taking a break.  They were there to make sure the lot was ready for all the DPW dump trucks full of snow headed there tonight, keeping anyone else from trying to park there.  The officer was not idling at a corner hoping to nab a red light or stop sign runner to make our streets safer but, rather, finishing up important law enforcement work in a city-owned vacant lot that has served for decades as a public parking lot and a dumping ground for snow.  It's entirely possible that a police officer or two spent hours making sure the lot was void of everything that had been comfortably situated there for the past month or so.  And this may very well be the last time anyone sees a police officer in a police vehicle in that lot doing such a thing.  As it should be! 

Then there is the enormous commercial box truck associated with the Caribbean bodega in the 200 block of Warren that has been parked in the Firestation lot for at least the past four months unmoved.  Until today, that is.  How long did it take HPD to track down the owner and convince them to move their truck?  How much did we pay a police officer to do this?  And on what street is that truck parked now?

That same enormous (and wide!) truck was parked on North 6th Street earlier this year for at least 6 months.  Unmoved and unticketed for 24 weeks, maybe more!  Un-fucking-moved!  Then it spent a month or two at the end of Prospect Street, switching sides every Monday and Tuesday night to avoid being ticketed, got sick and tired of doing that, then wound up in the Firestation lot.   That was at least 4 months ago.

For the past two years or so, the fenced area seen behind the HPD SUV has been leased by the city to PBH for storage of building materials and machinery.  Sometime next year, with work on the old factory completed, the PBH business complex will more than double the size of that area to create a 40-plus space parking lot (with buffer zone!) for its guests and customers.  Where the pictured HPD vehicle was standing this afternoon will soon be part of a large private parking lot on city property.  That's PBH's plan anyway.  They seem to be calling the shots around here. 

I have no doubt that there is a city official or two who are not at all happy that the Common Council and the mayor handed nearly all of the vacant Firestation lot over to Sean Roland and Gabe Katz of PBH.  This will likely turn out to be a huge, huge mistake and possible source of interpersonal friction (as well as headache for future mayor Joe Ferris).  As it should be.  It was an absolutely dumb ass lease deal to make with the PBH!

Oh well!