Overview of Key Project Activities:

On Wednesday 16^th, we sat in our assigned groups during class to begin writing our historical narratives. When doing so, we attempted to identify certain key events that shaped the Flushing community. We may also explore the possibility of attending another public hearing regarding the rezoning project.

Updates on Current Progress:

Last weekend we received the powerpoints for the hearings that we attended. We will look at the videos and attempt to break down the question and answer session.

Last Wednesday, we attempted to start our historical narrative.  We began by looking at the influx of Asian immigrants during the 1990’s and the reasons for which they may have moved to Flushing. A couple of reasons that we discussed were: the availability of the 7 train, expansion of Roosevelt Avenue, and the availability of new real estate within the area. The following 3 paragraphs give insight into our discussions and ideas.

During the late 1970’s and early 1980’s there was a rapid increase in the number of Korean inhabitants that Flushing had. At the time, many of the small businesses that were owned along Main Street were Korean. However, the Korean dominated community would soon be challenged in the late 1980’s and early 1980’s. During this time there was an increase in the number of Chinese immigrants that arrived to Flushing.  The Korean dominated streets began to see the occasional Chinese owned store. Slowly but surely, more and more Chinese owned stores began to open up along Main Street and Kissena Boulevard. The decrease in the number of Korean owned stores was directly related to the amount of real estate available in the communities. At the time, much of the available real estate was bought by wealthy Chinese people. This caused many Koreans to move towards other parts of Flushing and eventually led to the Chinese dominance of Main Street.

As of right now, the 7 train is the only train that runs through Flushing. This may explain the congestion that we see nowadays in Flushing. On Wednesday we mentioned the idea that the 7 train is one of the reasons why many Chinese immigrants went to Flushing. We thought that because much of the newly available real estate was being bought by wealthy Chinese people, the immigrants would feel more comfortable residing in an area where they could find people whom they could communicate easily with. The 7 train ensured that the people who would move to Flushing would still have a way to easily travel to other parts of the city.

The development and expansion of certain roadways also caused many new immigrants to choose Flushing as their new home. The expansion of facilitated travel towards parts of Flushing and Queens by giving buses a variety of roads that they could use.  However, we still believe the congestion is a problem within Flushing. We believe that part of the reason is the fact that the 7 train is the only big form of transportation that runs to Main Street. That is why, when investigating the issues of rezoning, we discussed the possible solutions that the city council member could propose to its community. One possible solution is the expansion of the 7 train to other parts of Flushing. People would then not be forced to reside around Main Street if they were reliant of public transportation. Another possible solution is the addition of city buses onto other streets. If this is done, the most congested streets will be alleviated. Maybe then, the community members will be more accepting of the rezoning project.

Interesting Findings:

We have not met with anyone from the Minkwon Center in the past week, so nothing new was found regarding the community center. However, there is a public hearing coming up that we will attend. Our findings will be listed in the next project updates.

Challenges Encountered:

The first challenge we have encountered is finding a new visual that we can present to the class and the members of the MinKwon Center. At the hearing we attended, we received numerous flyers that displayed the relevant issues that were discussed that night. We believed that creating another flyer would be ineffective and repetitive.  We have also been having difficulty deciding what to include in our

Remaining Tasks:

We are still trying to find an effective way that we can present a visual. At the moment, Claudia had the idea of creating a 3-D model that will display the end results of this proposed rezoning project. This will be used to give the community members an idea of what changes that may see as a result of the rezoning. We also may or may not attend the following community meeting that will take place on April 12^th at 6:30 pm at the St. George’s Church. If presented the opportunity, we wish to interview several members of the community in an effort to get insight into their frustrations. Another task we are continuing to work on is the historical narrative. I will be looking into the defining historical events that shaped affordable housing in Flushing. Erica will continue contact the MinKwon center and may look into the history and development of this establishment.  Wilian will look into the historical events that defined small business growth. Claudia will be focused on creating 3-D model that we can use as a visual to present to the MinKwon center and the community members of Flushing. Christine will continue to study the impact of gentrification on development. Through our research, we hope to develop a good historical narrative that demonstrates how certain key events shaped the Flushing.  We do not have a clear-cut plan for our white paper yet since we are still doing more research. As we narrow down ideas and share our work, we will establish a plan.

Group Dynamic:

As of now, Erica and I have completed the weekly reports. The remaining members have yet to decide who will complete the next weekly report. In our project brief, we mentioned the issues that each of us wanted to research and now we are looking to find key historical information that we think helped define Flushing. The workshop on the historical narrative was very effective given that we were able to share our ideas and concerns appropriately.