The Branding Dangers of a New York City Public Plaza
As an intersectional urban scholar, I am compelled by the ways in which migrant geographies expand and disrupt understandings of how metropolises are shaped and experienced. I am specifically intrigued by city-making projects that commit to equity initiatives. In this article I trace the development of New York City’s Diversity Plaza to demonstrate how branding public spaces with value-laden names dangerously imply erroneous conditions (Figure 1).
Figure 1, Southeast facing birds-eye view of Diversity Plaza. Photograph by kike Calvo, November 2018.
According to one New York Times article, the Earle Theater, located on 37th Road in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, “served up some of the raunchiest gay adult movies in town.” Shortly after the City’s health department shut it down in 1995, three Pakistani entrepreneurs took over the 500-seat art deco theatre and began screening films to reflect the interests of the United States’ largest diasporas from the Indian Subcontinent. Bollywood films were successively screened at the cinema rebranded as the Eagle Theater, providing a niche cultural hub for South Asian immigrants. Although at the time of theater’s reopening, the Indian-American film curator L. Somi Roy is quoted for saying “the more that South Asian [groups] become a community, the more it needs some place, some way to interact with each other. Videos don’t do that.” The Eagle closed its doors in 2009 due to a Bollywood strike that emerged on the other side of the planet. Two years later, directly in front of the empty theater, state bureaucrats produced a public space later called Diversity Plaza that facilitates what Roy had earlier suggested—“a place for the community to interact.” At first, however, some did not see the plaza that way (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Diversity Plaza’s location in Queen’s New York. Rendering created by author.
In 2007, under the Bloomberg Administration, Janet Sadik-Kahn was appointed Commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT). As she made significant changes to New York City streets and public spaces, like all technocrats, Sadik-Kahn faced her fair share of opposition. Although responsible for creating Time Square and Herald Square’s pedestrian plazas, she is notably remembered today for overseeing the building of nearly 400 miles of bike lanes, creating the city’s bike share program, and developing 60 pedestrian plazas throughout the five boroughs.
Resulting from the large numbers of pedestrians, trucks, buses, cars, and cyclists battling for its limited space, a transportation study undertaken by the DOT highlighted severe congestion at the intersection of Roosevelt Avenue and Broadway (Figure 3). To alleviate the traffic and to enhance safety, one intervention recommended converting 37th Road between 74th Street and 73rd Street into a pedestrian plaza. Besides Travers Park, Jackson Heights had been starved of public space since its inception. Elected officials therefore saw the spillover of the public plaza from untangling traffic as an opportunity for the neighborhood. In particular, Council Member Daniel Dromm, who at the time represented Queens 25th District, championed the plaza from the beginning. Since the impetus of the project was to alleviate congestion, one DOT official explains that the plaza’s initial development was a top-down process that did not include community outreach.[1] And since the esplanade was not initiated by the city’s Plaza Program—which was created to ensure that all New Yorkers live within a 10-minute walk to an open space—the plaza initially did not receive the same treatments and programming as other pedestrian zones. For instance, according to a DOT spokesperson, since the city had boulders, tables, and paint on hand, once receiving support from Queens Community Board’s (CB) 3 and 4, the project was quickly carried out.
Figure 3. Congestion led to the creation of the pedestrian plaza in 2011. Rendering created by author. Source NYCDOT.
“Mixed reactions followed when the plaza took shape in September 2011. Some saw it as a much-needed open space, while others claimed it disrupted business. Furious restaurateurs threatened to go on hunger strikes after losing business because the plaza ate up parking spaces.”
Mixed reactions followed when the plaza took shape in September 2011. Some residents saw it as a much-needed open space, while nearby merchants claimed it disrupted business. Furious restaurateurs and other proprietors threatened to go on hunger strikes after losing business because the plaza ate up parking spaces and redirected bus routes.[2] From the perspective of the brick and mortar businesses, changes that are imposed, rather than self-initiated, have the power to generate resistance as they revoke feelings of agency. Despite these initial responses, the encounters between state agents and business proprietors that transpired in the following year show how affective reactions stemming from changes to urban environments wane over time.
In August 2012, Councilmember Dromm and Jackson Heights business owners publicly announced that the controversy over the 37th Road Plaza was resolved. In the months following its implementation, while shopkeepers claimed that business began to pick up as people started actively using the plaza, the increasing number of vagrants and trash became the focus of their concerns. As private-interest often propels people to take public action, business owners began showing up at local community meetings sharing their anxieties about the plaza to government agents. After close to a year of interactions with DOT, CB 3, and Councilmember Dromm, business owners adjacent to the plaza gained a sense of collective agency over the space through the development of an organization called Social Uplift Through Knowledge and Hope Initiative (SUKHI).
SUKHI first focused on improving the quality of life in the plaza; they then shifted its attention primarily to organize events, while the Association of Community Employment Programs for the Homeless (ACE) began ensuring the cleanliness of the space.[3] Moreover, Friends of Diversity Plaza, a local partnership comprising residents, neighborhood organizations, and Councilmember Dromm’s office emerged in 2013 to additionally ensure the plaza’s vibrancy. Meanwhile, the Neighborhood Plaza Partnership (NPP), a program developed by the Horticultural Society of New York (The Hort), was also established in 2013 to help neighborhoods transform reclaimed streets into vibrant spaces. Since their inception, NPP has been instrumental in working with Jackson Heights’ residents and organizations to improve the plaza. In conjunction with the DOT, they did so by holding public meetings to elicit feedback concerning the ways in which locals believed the plaza could be transformed to enhance its use. Reflecting the social heterogeneity of Jackson Heights, and more broadly Northwestern Queens, state agents and community organizations colloquially referred to the space as Diversity Plaza at such meetings. That is until the city council approved the moniker as its official name in 2016. Calling it the “cultural crossroads of the world,” on the occasion of its formal naming, Dromm thanked all stakeholders for making “the plaza the inviting and welcoming place it is today.” In listing 240 reasons to celebrate America, shortly after the city formalized its name, Diversity Plaza was listed as number 46 by Time Magazine.
While Diversity Plaza received facelifts over the years, it was not until July 2017 that the city began constructing a new plaza to meet the needs of the neighborhood. This time, the project was not only to improve vehicular and pedestrian traffic, but also to beautify and enhance its usability. In particular, the revamp included new trees, raised planters, bike racks, moveable furniture, wayfinding signage, lighting, and open space for performances. It was also extended to include a triangle traffic island formed by Broadway, Roosevelt Avenue, and 73rd Street (Figure 4). Due to the plaza’s access to the neighborhood’s transit hub, Dromm, whose office helped fund the improvements, called Diversity Plaza the epicenter of the neighborhood.[4]
Figure 4. Rendering of Diversity Plaza’s makeover. Source: New York City Department of Design and Construction.
The groundbreaking for the $4.5 million project was one of many encounters between government agents and organizations comprising local residents and business. As various actors provided interpretations concerning their perceptions of the plaza, the term “diversity” was used to generate a specific image for the neighborhood that signifies inclusion (Figure 5). For example, at the outset of the project, Mayor De Blasio, like Dromm, called the plaza “the epicenter of culture, community and vibrancy within New York City’s most diverse borough.” DOT’s Commissioner Polly Trottenberg said “Diversity Plaza brings the countless different cultures of the community together in one vibrant plaza.” Melinda Katz, the Queens Borough President saw “Diversity Plaza as the intersection of the world, where people from all communities, all walks of life, and all over the globe gather to meet, laugh, cry, sing, pray, dance, eat, play. It’s [the] borough’s public hub for the unabated exercise of speech, assembly, religion, expression.” New York State Senator Toby Ann Stavisky recognized the plaza as a “space that allows people of all backgrounds to come together [to] celebrate differences as well as similarities.” Sara Hobel, Executive Director of the Hort said “Diversity Plaza exemplifies the best kind of public space – inclusive, democratic, and populist.”
In relation to most neighborhoods in New York City, in terms of numbers, Northwestern Queens undoubtedly comprises greater densities of working-class groups from countries around the world. Moreover, as this part of Queens is represented by Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jackson Heights has come to signal the egaliatarian reforms that people on the left favor. This is in part illustrated as organized activities hosted at the plaza to celebrate, mourn, and bring together the many different groups, not just national, but also LBGTQ groups comprising Queens. In an age where intolerance toward immigrants and minorities is heightened by the country’s former president, for many the plaza importantly symbolizes plurality. According to Hannah Arendt, plurality, which presupposes diversity, is the condition of all political life. Figures posing danger to the livelihoods of those living in plural societies are subsequently seen as a threat to socially varied settlements. For instance, four days after Donald Trump was elected to office in 2016, the rally that emerged at Diversity Plaza was a stance against his anti-immigrant agenda.
“While the term diversity can undoubtedly make people “feel good” and foster social and civil engagement, the term also conceals the problems that it pretends overcome.”
In sending the message that “diversity trumps hate,” one member of Friends of Diversity Plaza said that “what we have shown here is 100 percent the unity in our diversity as a community.” Confronting the Trump Administration’s xenophobic ideologies is a fight against the reproduction and maintenance of unequal and inequitable societies. While some government agents and residents recognize the plaza as a heterogeneous symbol of unity, which by implication is a position that opposes social stratification, the plaza’s name paradoxically conceals the imbalances maintained in society’s social structures. While the term diversity can undoubtedly make people “feel good” and foster social and civil engagement, the term also conceals the problems that it pretends overcome.
Vacillating between discourses of economic value (the business case for diversity) and moral value (the social justice case), the language of valuing diversity is now mainstream. Diversity as a model hence reifies difference as something that already exists “in” the bodies of others. For instance, as the accounts of the five white government actors above illustrate, Jackson Heights is diverse because of the presence of marked bodies convivially engaging with each other. The bureaucrats speak to what Sara Ahmed refers to as “happy multiculturalism.” The “diversity” in Diversity Plaza can thus be seen as a cuddly concept that extends the neighborhood’s self-image as being good. In this sense, diversity is a politics of feeling good, allowing people to relax and feel less threatened. It is a mode of happiness, where different groups are represented as happily getting along, as committed to equality, and anti-racist. Diversity Plaza is thus about creating the right image and correcting the wrong one. The plaza’s name has marketing appeal: branding it in such a way not only conceals the inequalities and racism that persist in the area, but it works to re-imagine Jackson Heights as a place where all groups are “integrated.” Calling the plaza diverse is a way of not bringing something into effect.
Figure 5. Government officials at the 2017 groundbreaking of Diversity Plaza’s makeover. Source: New York City.
While SUKHI, Friends of Diversity Plaza, and other local organizations host events that invite many different groups from Northwestern Queens, experiencing the plaza in their everyday life, local residents see the plaza differently than the state agents who are not Jackson Heights’ residents. For example, according to Suketu Mehta (p.16), the plaza is the go-to spot for locals to debate politics in their homelands, pick up prescriptions at Bangladeshi pharmacies, and buy paan, momos, and samosas at nearby stalls. Such situation is specified by Sophia, a Malaysian-born attorney who lives with her Polish-born husband and infant son two blocks north of the plaza. She notes, “I call it man plaza. I would love to sit there with my son. But it’s mostly men spitting paan. I find it very disturbing, which makes me uncomfortable.”[5] A Senior Manager at DOT who oversees the management and maintenance of Diversity Plaza says that since the completion of the capital project, “I am beginning to see more families use the space, at least more women and children on the weekends.” This agent, who is in his mid-forties and has only lived in Jackson Heights, also notes that “programs are being instituted to attract those groups. But it is still dominated by men. The events held here, like Eid, India’s Independence Day, LBGTQ and Pride Festival, they cater to certain groups. 82nd Street is definitely a Latin end of the neighborhood. I can’t recall a Latin organization use Diversity Plaza as if it was theirs.”[6] Councilmember Dromm, who like the DOT official is a white-identifying queer man, says that the plaza’s use “is hugely diverse between the Asian and South Asian communities. But Latinos don’t use it as much. Some white, affluent folks use it… we even hold our community board meetings at the plaza. But things are more defined by class, rather than race in Jackson Heights.”[7] Furthermore, due to the numerous wristband watch billboards that used to plaster one of the storefronts lining the pedestrian space, a Nepalese-born hawker who toils around the corner from the plaza, simply refers to the space as “watch plaza.”[8] This is because the hawker and his friends do not recognize the large presence of South Asian men as diverse. In fact, he relays that he enjoys going to Brooklyn’s Williamsburg to experience social difference. While these varying accounts paint different pictures than the narratives issued by government agents at the groundbreaking of the plaza, due to Northwestern Queens social heterogeneity, it is easy to see why the “diversity” in Diversity Plaza is primarily associated with differences that exist ‘in’ the bodies, cultures, and languages of others. Failing to capture age, gender, ability, legal status, and sex subsequently reveals Diversity Plaza as a categorical inequality—that is, where inequalities persist across certain groups.
For instance, when it comes accessing public space, Diversity Plaza and its surrounding areas emphasizes spatial inequalities. As illustrated by their continuous presence, South Asian men exhibit the greatest level of agency over the everyday use of the plaza (Figure 6). African American men, whose population is less than four percent in the neighborhood, also routinely negotiate sidewalks around the plaza for informal economic use. In this way, the plaza is primarily dominated by men. To be sure, Jackson Heights enables immigrant Latinx women the ability to routinely occupy Queens’ public sphere. Though they are largely bounded to sidewalks far away from the plaza. These spatial segmentations reveals how diversity’s ambiguous meaning works to conceal its actual utility (Figure 7). It shows how it’s a concept that contains a powerful sense of social romanticism, creating an illusion of equality in a highly asymmetrical world. It is a discourse of benign variation that suggests a harmonious empty pluralism. It invokes difference but does not necessarily evoke commitment to action or redistributive justice. It is a tactic for the city to retain the good idea of itself.
Figure 6. West facing view of Diversity Plaza. Photograph by Noah Allison, August 2018.
Figure 7. Diagram illustrating the spatial segmentation of the various groups comprising the area. Graphic created by author. Visualization source.
So when it comes to future city-making projects and aesthetic improvements, urban practitioners need to think beyond using slippery slogans that evoke superficial inclusivity. Instead, they must pay attention to the ways that racist and patriarchal power structures reproduce spatial disadvantages for a society’s less-privileged groups. They need to understand who is dispossessed, who is expelled, and why. And they must engage directly with local stakeholders, workers, and residents and allow them to describe the ordinary ways that they create, use, and maintain the public sphere. In other words, it is only when urban practitioners take stock of individual inhabitants’ varied ways of experiencing landscapes can the articulation of the plural city emerge. And as Donald Trump announced that he is running for the 2024 president ticket in November, it is all the more urgent that cities nationwide prepare to counter the potential institutionalization of his anti-immigrant agenda and America-first ideology. That is because cities have the power to safeguard less-resourced groups from national harms. As Jane Jacobs reminds us, “cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”
Notes
1. Author interview with Andrew Ronan. August 28, 2018.
2. Author interview with Andrew Ronan. August 28, 2018.
3. The majority of ACE workers comprise the Black populations that move through Jackson Heights’ streets.
4. Author interview with Councilman Daniel Dromm. August 11, 2018.
5. Author interview with Sophia, June 1, 2018.
6. Author interview with Andrew Ronan, August 28, 2018.
7. Author interview with Councilman Daniel Dromm. August 11, 2018.
8. Author interview with Rigzin, May 27, 2018.
