Desktop Day: Willets Point

This week a view of Willets Point, or the Iron Triangle, where hundreds of mechanics recycle the city's cast-off autos. If you click on the image you can open the large version, which is sized for your computer desktop wallpaper. Instructions Left-click on the image first to open up the large version. Windows PC: Right-click on the large image and select 'set as desktop background'. You can also right-click and 'save as', then use your desktop properties settings to add the file you just saved and format it how you prefer. There's more info on customising your PC desktop here.

Mac: Macintosh instructions can be found here.

Iron Triangle: $3 Billion Makeover

$3 billion: that's the cost of turning the 60-acre Willets Point site, and the 250 or so businesses operating there, into a retail destination. This according to the President of New York City's Economic Development Corp., Robert Lieber, who's quoted in the NY Daily News today. Lieber also estimated public costs (or our taxes used to prep the site for the private developers) to be $100 to $200 million. The city does not want to use eminent domain, Lieber said, but added, "[As] the mayor said on May 1, he's not going to let one person be the holdout for the good that's associated with so many other people." No Land Grab had this to say on eminent domain and Willets Point: "Eminent domain is either on or off the table — to say it will only be used if the city can't make a deal with the property owners is coercive."

Molding the Metropolis

Robert Moses (1888-1981), architect of the 1964 World's Fair and a guy who "got things done," is the subject of a trio of exhibitions under the banner of "Robert Moses and the Modern City." "Remaking the Metropolis" at the Museum of the City of New York (to May 28) observes 30 years of Moses frolicking in his own municipal sandbox. “Slum Clearance and the Superblock Solution” is at Columbia’s Wallach Art Gallery (to April 14). "The Road to Recreation" is at the Queens Museum of Art (to May 27), with the opening reception this Sunday afternoon. While you are there, it's well worth taking a stroll round nearby Flushing Meadows Park to see the rusting giants of the World's Fair.

Muffler Men: Endangered in the Iron Triangle

The Muffler Men are creations of the welders of Willets Point, Queens. This wedge of land next-door to the Shea baseball stadium is a few blocks of intense automotive activity.

Scarred with pot holes and huge puddles, this is a recycling zone for the corpses of dead cars and trucks. Among vast displays of shining chrome wheels and replacement mufflers, workers whistle or shout to grab the attention of drivers as they cruise (or bounce) past. Of course, an area that sustains many livelihoods but yields low tax revenues cannot go unnoticed by developers. The vultures of Forest City Ratner are circling.