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Auto shop owners fi ght for access
Displaced businesses in Willets Point want city to clear the gates blocking the Iron Triangle
BY MAX PARROTT
Rodrigo Sinchi was lured to
move his auto shop out of Willets
Point by city-subsidized
economic incentives in 2015.
Then he was evicted from the
city-guaranteed new location
in the Bronx in 2017.
After he conceded about
$20,000 of lost income, gave up
on managing his own shop,
and went back to the Iron
Triangle to find a gig just to
get by, the city barred traffic
from his new place of work
by gating off Willets Point
Boulevard as phase one of its
adjacent megadevelopment.
After over five years of
struggle, Sinchi is trying to reconvene
the Sunshine Cooperative,
a group of 45 mechanics
and auto-body shops in Willets
Point, who negotiated with the
city for subsidies in 2014 after
it took over their properties in
order to develop Willets Point.
“We are the survivors,”
said Sinchi.
Sinchi’s new goal is putting
pressure on the city to open
several streets, which functioned
as access points for a
large section of chop shops in
the Iron Triangle. Sinchi gathered
a group of five auto shop
owners on Saturday, Sept. 1,
to discuss their strategy for
From left, Rodrigo Sinchi, Robert LoScalzo and Spencer Flores discuss strategies to open the gates
blocking Willets Point Boulevard. Photo by Max Parrott/QNS
reopening a stretch of Willets
Point Boulevard and several
other adjoining streets that he
says are choking off their flow
of customers and cutting into
their bottom line.
In early July, the New York
City Department of Housing
and Preservation blocked off
Willets Point Boulevard, 36th,
37th and 38th avenues as part
of its overarching Willets
Point Development Plan. On
Saturday, the shop owners met
with Robert LoScalzo, an advocate
and documentary filmmaker
who has been reporting
on the plight of the Iron Triangle
shop owners for years.
“The travesty here runs so
deep and long. It’s hard to even
summarize it in a few sentences,”
LoScalzo said.
Spencer Flores said he
lost $45,000 in moving to Willets
Point from the failed
Bronx warehouse.
“Well now, OK I’m fine.
And then they close the city
gate,” said Flores. “Customers
don’t come every day. They
come one time a week or maybe
every other day.”
LoScalzo gave the group
advice on which politicians
to target and how to get the
attention of local civic organizations.
The group agreed
that they would show up to the
next Community Board 7 committee
meeting on the Willets
Point Redevelopment on Sep.
18 and contact state Senator
Jessica Ramos and Councilman
Francisco Moya to advocate
on their behalf.
This plan to gather political
support is not without its skeptics
though. Another Iron Triangle
shop owner Irene Prestigiacomo
said that she and
other allied shop owners have
been reaching out to the offices
of Ramos and Moya since May
in order to enlist their support
for paving the roads, without
being able to get them to agree
to a meeting.
Read more at QNS.com.
Reach reporter Max
Parrott by email at
mpa r r o t t@s chn e p sme -
dia.com or by phone at
(718) 260-2507.
Vol. 28 No. 36 48 total pages
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