The demise of Roosevelt Island's homogeneous red Main Street retail storefront signage began today starting with removal
and upside down trashing
of the Public Safety Department sign at 550 Main Street.
Main Street Master Leaseholder Hudson Related's David Kramer explained the new signage policy during April 2 Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) Real Estate Advisory Committee meeting. According to Mr. Kramer:
... Every retailer can do whatever they want, that we are providing a certain platform which is to have a flat sign across that is lit and whatever they want to do within the rectangle they can do...
... we have some suggested colors...
Here's a final remembrance to Roosevelt Island's Main Street signage from 2009 post:
Main Street Image Of Roosevelt Island Is The Village From Glark
Roosevelt Island's drab, dreary and depressing Main Street has often been compared to East Berlin prior to the fall of the Wall or even The Village from the great British Television program The Prisoner. Glark, a blogger recently visiting Roosevelt Island wrote:
This morning I got up early and explored the half of Roosevelt Island I missed on my first trip to this weirdo bit on earth in the East River. Main Street in so late 60s and early 70s it made my teeth ache. It’s all concrete and metal siding, rundown and aesthetically homogeneous. It’s like a English village via Soviet Russia. It’s the New York version of The Village from the cult TV series The Prisoner. It’s fascinating that it is so close to Manhattan and yet worlds apart....
A musician playing in the subway is a fairly common New York City experience but not on the Roosevelt Island subway platform. Except for today. Earlier this afternoon, I and several others enjoyed this performance of Secret Agent Man while waiting for the F Train.
You Tube Video of Secret Agent Man Performed On Roosevelt Island Subway Platform
After the gentleman finished playing and those present applauded, I had a brief conversation with him from across the platform. He told me that he was coming from Coler Hospital where he performs for the patients. Unfortunately, I forgot his name but I thank him for a wonderful performance.
Secret Agent Man, known as Danger Man in England, was the name and theme song for one of my favorite TV programs and starred Patrick McGoohan. Some think that the Secret Agent Man character John Drake later became the imprisoned #6 from another great and very strange TV show, The Prisoner.
Main Street Image Of Roosevelt Island Is The Village From Glark
Roosevelt Island's drab, dreary and depressing Main Street has often been compared to East Berlin prior to the fall of the Wall or even The Village from the great British Television program The Prisoner. Glark, a blogger recently visiting Roosevelt Island wrote:
This morning I got up early and explored the half of Roosevelt Island I missed on my first trip to this weirdo bit on earth in the East River. Main Street in so late 60s and early 70s it made my teeth ache. It’s all concrete and metal siding, rundown and aesthetically homogeneous. It’s like a English village via Soviet Russia. It’s the New York version of The Village from the cult TV series The Prisoner. It’s fascinating that it is so close to Manhattan and yet worlds apart.
It is quite detailed and 54 pages long. Issues of Roosevelt Island demographics, appropriate retail store and square footage mix, what type of retail services do the residents of Roosevelt Island want and not want, competitive analysis of existing retail choices, problems caused by the restrictive covenant in Gristedes Supermarket lease that inhibits retail competition, how can visitors be attracted to Roosevelt Island to spend retail dollars, future options for Main Street retail, among many others are addressed. It is a comprehensive document. The Study's findings are (Page 2):
Roosevelt Island residents do just 12% of their shopping on the island.
The existing retail mix on Main Street is failing to capture the new market opportunities afforded by the island’s growing affluent market.
Main Street suffers from several design flaws.
Residents have a very negative attitude towards Main Street.
Roosevelt Island is gaining affluent residents while maintaining its economic and ethnic diversity.
Cultural and athletic activities bring thousands of visitors to Roosevelt Island each year, but this translates to very little spending on Main Street.
The most desired new retail uses from residents on Roosevelt Island are a bakery, a restaurant, a green grocer, an ice cream shop, a pizzeria and fish store.
There is sufficient demand to support at least a small-format green grocer, a bakery, another sit-down restaurant and a quick-service food and beverage establishment.
Roosevelt Island Main Street Arcades Page 14 of Report
The Study recommends (Page 3):
... six major interrelated intervention strategies to set a new life for Main Street in motion:
Create a public/private partnership to lease and/or help manage Main Street.
Pursue specific streetscape interventions and create appearance standards and design guidelines for Main Street retailers.
Revive the Roosevelt Island Chamber of Commerce to be the steward of Main Street success.
Re-organize existing non-profit uses to maximize available marketable space, and cluster
appropriate non-profits into space more suitable to function.
Make Good Shepherd Plaza the “town square” of Roosevelt Island.
Create a “Gateway to Main Street” at the southern entrance point to Main Street.
The Study concludes (Page 38) that the following types of retail tenants would be most appropriate for Roosevelt Island's Main Street:
1. Green Grocer
2. Ice Cream Shop
3. Specialty Cheese Shop
4. Seafood Store
5. Bakery
6. Pizzeria
7. Florist
8. Restaurant
9. Butcher
10. Home furnishings store.
As to the future, the Study found, as we all know from historical practice, that RIOC is not qualified to manage a successful Main Street Retail environment (Page 39-40):
... The RIOC does not have the administrative or professional capacity to create a successful retail environment on Main Street.
This is due in large part to the extensive RFP process which is required pursuant to the RIOC’s status as a public authority. The RIOC should follow the example provided by other public authorities in New York which have dealt with this same issue by engaging retail professionals in the private sector. Private involvement in Main Street could utilize one of the three following basic approaches:
1. The Master Leaseholder (the JFK Model): Under this arrangement, the RIOC would solicit proposals, as it did in 2005, for a private takeover of all or some Main Street retail storefronts. Terminal 4 at John F. Kennedy airport is an example of such an approach. In 1997, the Port Authority of New York executed a 25 year lease with Schipol USA and LCOR Incorporated for all retail spaces in the terminal. Schipol/LCOR sub-leases each space and manages the overall retail environment.
2. The Retail Manager/Consultant (the Grand Central Model): This model would allow the RIOC to maintain control over Main Street, but the leasing process and management of the tenants would be handled by a private consultant(s). The tenanting of individual spaces, storefront design guidelines and maintenance standards would be based on an overall retail master plan developed by the RIOC. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s partnership with Jones Lang LaSalle and William Jackson Ewing is a good example of this arrangement. This example is highlighted on the following page.
3. The Hybrid Model: This model, which represents a combination of the first two approaches, would be based on a Retail Master Plan created by the RIOC. The Retail Master Plan would identify specific categories of retail that make sense from both a market and community viewpoint and, where possible, identify the potential locations of each. RIOC would then solicit proposals for a master leaseholder. The master lease agreement would contain stipulations about specific types of tenants and locations are available based on the RIOC Retail Master Plan.
The RIOC has articulated a desire to continue to maintain some control over the tenanting and management of Main Street. As such, the Grand Central model really makes the most sense. The problem, however, would be the costs associated with retaining qualified private consultants. If retaining a consultant is not economically feasible, the RIOC should consider the feasibility of pursuing the Hybrid Model. This would allow the RIOC to identify several specific uses that are: (1) desired by residents; and (2) viable based on the market analysis in this report, and negotiate a master lease agreement with stipulations that the master leaseholder must pursue tenants in those categories. Conducting a transparent RFP process, including an independent appraisal of each space, for the overall management of Main Street would fulfill the requirements of the Public Authorities Act by securing a fair market value for the master lease. The private firm would then be allowed to sub-lease the spaces, as long as the tenants met the stipulations of the RIOC Retail Master Plan. ...
Maybe, perhaps, if we are extremely lucky, RIOC will follow through on the Study's recommendations, get out of the business of managing retail on Main Street and find a private sector Master Retail Leaseholder to take over Main Street.
Otherwise, Roosevelt Island's Main Street is doomed to continue to look like a drab relic of East Berlin before the Wall fell or the Village from The Prisoner!.
Following up on last post about Life on Mars shooting scenes at Roosevelt Island's Goldwater Hospital and using Southpoint Park as their parking lot, here's some more Roosevelt Island movie and tv info.
Blogger Mr. Peel's Sardine Liqueur remembers the Roosevelt Island Tram hostage scene from the Nighthawks movie starring a young Sylvester Stallone and Rutger Hauer.
There’s a terrific chase through the subway and, what most people probably remember about the film, a long, very well-done hostage sequence filmed on the Roosevelt Island Tram, a location also used in SPIDER-MAN but since this is all actually filmed there (no blue screen work) it plays extremely perilous and suspenseful.
Although Portmeirion Wales was the location where it was shot, Roosevelt Island reminds some visitors of The Village from my favorite all time television program, The Prisoner starring Patrick McGoohan. From Gawker's article on post-recession New York City neighborhoods one reader wrote:
I never could put my finger on what I found odd about Roosevelt Island's look until I realized it's an urban version of The Village from The Prisoner.
AMC and ITV will remake Patrick McGoohan's cult TV show "The Prisoner" as a six-part mini with Ian McKellen as Number Two and Jim Caviezel as Number Six.
And:
"There will be nods and winks and references back to the original, but I don't think that they'll feel in any way that their original has been tarnished," said Wayne. "Even though this would fall under sci-fi traditionally, this is a drama at its core."
While the original show worked as a metaphor for the paranoia of the Cold War, AMC says the remake will reflect 21st-century stressors such as constant surveillance and the conflict between liberty and security.
Roosevelt Island is a mixed income, racially diverse waterfront community situated in the East River of New York City between Manhattan and Queens and is jurisdictionally part of Manhattan. The Roosevelt Island Tramway, which connects Roosevelt Island to the rest of Manhattan, has become the iconic symbol of Roosevelt Island to its residents.
The Purpose of this Blog is to provide accurate and timely information about Roosevelt Island as well as a forum for residents to express opinions and engage in a dialogue to improve our community.
Main Street Image Of Roosevelt Island Is The Village From Glark
