Statement on the Opening of Target, Chipotle and Starbucks in Elmhurst
The brand names of gentrification and displacement have finally shown their faces on 82nd Street: Target, Chipotle, and Starbucks are here. As 1/3 of small businesses in NYC are threatened to permanently close, developers Sun Equity Partners and Heskel Group continue with their plans to open a mall, taking advantage of a time when our neighborhoods are hurting. How does a mall open in the middle of a pandemic?
It opened not despite this devastating pandemic, but with the momentum of it. In our open letter that we issued to elected officials earlier this spring, we warned our representatives to block disaster capitalism and developers’ vulture mentality during a public health crisis. They did not listen.
- During this crisis, we’ve seen corporations thrive, driving profits to wealthy investors while small businesses and working class communities like ours struggle.
- We’ve heard politicians lament the loss of billionaire residents, while our communities are left to pick up the pieces.
- Corporations are given permission to stake their claims on our neighborhoods, while we are systematically denied basic relief.
Sun Equity Partners and Heskel Group exemplify the disaster capitalism we warned about. With brazen disregard for the lives of laborers and patients, they applied for a permit for “essential” construction work even when down the block, Elmhurst Hospital was the epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis. They knowingly added congestion to a key route used by ambulances rushing patients to Elmhurst’s emergency room — just to have an earlier mall opening date. We also documented how the developers exploited their workers — pushing them to work illegally over time, and not offering them protective gear as they raced their project to completion. And to ensure no protesters could stop them, the developers used paramilitary guards and guard dogs.
We began our Target campaign in 2016 to prevent the domino effect of corporate chains invading our neighborhoods. With your help, we secured a major victory: We stopped their initial luxury residential plans, took Target and the developers to court (costing them $$$ in attorney fees), and grew our network of neighbors and community groups to fight back.
At the height of the pandemic, in early spring of 2020, our priorities shifted towards emergency response and mutual aid. To say the least, the last 7+ months have been really, really hard. There has been an exhausting string of bad news, and we don’t share the developers’ privilege of being able to continue business as usual. With that said, we are closing our campaign but we are definitely NOT gonna stop. This was never just about Target or 82nd St, this has always been much bigger than that. The Amerikkkan government has always prioritized profits over people. We see how capitalism has ravaged through communities of color since its inception, when colonizers stole indigenous land and enslaved Africans. Even though we are closing out this campaign, we urge you all to stay alert and ready to fight back. Amid election season we want to remind you that you have a duty to your community beyond the ballot. Whether you vote or not, remember the history of this country and your power to fight back.
What did the Target campaign achieve/what do we have to celebrate?
We still did a lot worth celebrating despite the continued gentrification of our neighborhoods.
In 2016, the developers first tried to get approval to rezone (build taller than allowed) so that they could build a 13-story luxury apartment and commercial complex which would have resulted in more unaffordable rents, worse traffic, and more school overcrowding. By promising a few so-called “affordable units”, they got support from one of the most powerful Congressmen at the time, Congressman Joe Crowley, his mentee Councilman Moya, and of course, the 82nd Street Business Improvement District.
But our community was not fooled. We challenged the rezoning, drawing attention from rising politicians Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jessica Ramos, and Catalina Cruz, but most importantly, we drew support from YOU — our neighbors. Hundreds of our neighbors attended meetings, signed petitions, pressured politicians and joined protests. Our united efforts paid off; in June 2018, the developers WITHDREW their rezoning application. This was a HUGE victory, and it was the people who live and work in our Jackson Heights and Elmhurst community, who made it possible.
We didn’t stop there. The developers downsized their project to a two story mall even though local law PROHIBITS the development of big box stores larger than 10,000 square feet on 82nd street. Target is avoiding this law saying most of its 23,000 square feet store is underground. So in addition to campaigning on the ground and street canvassing, we tried playing by their rules too. We used every legal tool available to us to challenge the mall — even taking this fight to the New York Supreme Court. But the courts ultimately ruled in favor of the developers, revealing how New York laws and land use processes are skewed to help developers’ profits over people.
With the mall set to open, our legal fight is closed. But as one chapter of our 82nd street fight closes, we want to be very clear — we are NOT stopping our fight against the corporate colonization of our community. And we are NOT stopping our fight against rezonings which prioritize developer profits over people and small businesses.
What are the root causes that we must continue to resist?
Shifting our spending to local small businesses instead of corporate chains is important, but it is only one step. We must focus our efforts on fighting the root cause. Sun Equity Partners, Heskel Group and their corporate friends are using our community to extract as much profit as they can, no matter how many small businesses they destroy or tenants they displace. And they will use what they take from us to take over another community and another. To make lasting change, we must fight over-development at every step and push our elected officials to do the same. Never trust the rich, never trust those who seek to make a profit off you.
Our demands have not changed, which is fucking sad because it means none of this has been achieved. This is the world we live in and we need to change it:
- We need more funding specifically for immigrant businesses, including street vendors, undocumented business owners, and cash-based businesses, so many of whom have been left out of federal and city disaster relief.
- We need the cancellation of residential and commercial rent.
- We need cash assistance for undocumented New Yorkers.
“Not enough funding” can no longer be an excuse. There’s always options, like defunding Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) and the NYPD, institutions that take away from our communities rather than support them.
To those who are concerned that this fight is too big to win, let’s remember what they told us about Amazon and what we achieved despite it: They told us that Jeff Bezos was too big, too powerful to stop. Yet our community came together, fought and won victoriously by relentlessly refusing any negotiations behind closed doors and standing firmly by our opposition to the anti-immigrant corporation. Let us continue to look after our neighbors, take care of each other, and resist the powers that aim to hurt us. We hope to fight with you and grow together. Let’s fuck more shit up.
P.S.
Shout out to the groups who have supported our campaign: Hate Free Zone Coalition, Justice for All Coalition, Chhaya CDC, Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, Long Island City Coalition, Korean Americans for Political Advancement, People’s Cultural Plan, Social Practice Queens, the Queens branch of the Democratic Socialists of America, the Queens Chapter of the People Power’s Assembly, and the Queensboro Houses Association.
There are bad development projects happening all over Queens and the rest of the city. Here are some you should look into if you’re in these neighborhoods and want to plug in:
Campaign to stop the LaGuardia Airtrain (reach out to Ditmar Boulevard Block Association)
