The would-be Amazon headquarters in Long Island, New York, a project scuttled by U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats, has devolved into a vacant eyesore on the Queens waterfront, and many business owners and residents are apparently still unhappy about it.
The massive waterfront project known as HQ2, which Amazon intended to build but subsequently canceled in February 2019 after fierce political opposition emerged, was expected to create 25,000-plus jobs in the area.
“It’s really crazy what’s going on. The city has no solutions. We have a do-nothing mayor,” one local business owner told the New York Post. “I’m watching AOC selling ‘Tax the rich’ T-shirts for $58 while businesses are leaving New York. That’s AOC’s solution. Who is going to pay $58 for a T-shirt when you’re out of a job?”, she added.
Another owner asserted that “The site just sits there empty. It’s terrible. We’re in the middle of a pandemic. People say, ‘If we only had Amazon.’ We got nothing.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio, who supported the Amazon deal that included controversial enormous tax breaks, subsidies, and other perks for the Jeff Bezos-owned online retailer, recently shot down an alternative, multi-use proposal on the site.
Reacting to the failed Amazon deal, a Long Island City restaurateur explained that “I’m angry at the stupidity. Everybody fears AOC, who has no idea what she’s doing. Opposing Amazon benefited other communities. Imagine if AOC did something positive with her big mouth.”
AOC is still holding firm on her position. According to her spokeswoman, the proposed Amazon HQ “would have given [residents] their hard-earned tax dollars to one of the wealthiest men in the world, in exchange for a campus that made no promises about hiring local residents or contracting with local businesses.”
Since the deal fell through, Amazon bought the former Lord & Taylor building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and leased space elsewhere in the borough.
So-called moderate Democrat Max Rose, who previously described de Blasio as the worst mayor in New York City history– perhaps because of the incumbent’s lackluster economic performance, is considering seeking the office himself.
Bill de Blasio is the worst Mayor in the history of New York City.
Just stating the facts in my latest ad #NY11 pic.twitter.com/SHfBEix5l6
— Max Rose (@MaxRose4NY) September 9, 2020
Republican Nicole Malliotakis — who is forming an anti-socialist Freedom Force to counter AOC’s far-left “Squad” — defeated Rose in Election 2020 as he sought and failed to win a second term in the U.S. Congress representing the 11th congressional district in the Staten Island area. According to Rose’s campaign website, New York City as a place “where anyone can build a better future… is slipping way.”
According to a local clergyman, “The Amazon project provided a ray of hope to a lot of people. We didn’t want a handout. The largest public housing project in the country wanted the opportunity to do business with the largest retailer in the country.”
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Robert Jonathan is a staff writer for BizPac Review. He is a longtime writer/editor for news aggregation websites and has also developed content in the legal and financial publishing sectors as well as for online education. He earned a Juris Doctorate from the University of Connecticut School of Law, “a law school the basketball teams can be proud of.”
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