The Feb. 3 edition of the Great Neck News features a story by reporter John Santa on store vacancies in Great Neck. Since the main commercial area of Great Neck is located within the confines of the Village of Great Neck Plaza, my observations herein are directed at the local village that runs these streets.
For those of us who frequently walk the downtown commercial area of the Plaza – and that unlikely includes the salaried mayor and her salaried trustees – it is impossible not to notice the glaring decline not only measured in the large vacancy rate, but also in the appearance and quality of some of the stores. As a kid growing up in Queens, Great Neck was a destination, a very special place of charming streets and quality businesses. It saddens me to observe this decline which is now becoming precipitous in scope.
While Mr. Santa did report on some of the reasons for the high vacancies, as stated to him by local business leaders and the Plaza’s very part-time but very salaried mayor, Ms. Celender, such as a struggling economy, high taxes, high rents, and changing demographics, all of which have some validity but none of which represent the underlying or a significant cause of the problem.
Ms. Celender contends that with respect to the proliferation of vacancies “it’s not to be unexpected in this economic downturn that we’ve been going through these past two years.”
What nonsense, what economic downturn in Great Neck? This community has been generally insulated and spared – as it has been in past recessions – from the effects of national economic woes because it has attracted, by and large, a highly educated and motivated population who are generally gainfully employed, and many of whom arrive here in Great Neck already successful and well-heeled.
If Mayor Celender and her de facto appointee trustees would bother to roam around the main commercial streets of the Plaza, they would not see the “economic downturn” she proffers as the cause of the embarrassingly “in your face” vacancies, but rather they would see the streets of their village as a veritable luxury car showroom where the newest Mercedes, BMW’s, Jag’s, Audi’s, Porsche’s, Land Rover’s, and even a few Bentley’s and Rolls Royces vie for a place to park. The folks who drive these lovely cars, arguably, have lots of bucks and, arguably, not too many places to spend them in the Plaza.
If Ms. Celender and her trustees continue to walk around the village (a novel idea, no doubt for them), they will see a collection and density of financial institutions that is formidable. In the Gardens shopping center, there are three banks almost cheek to jowl, two more going down Great Neck Road, one on North Station Plaza, one on Cuttermill Road, two on Middle Neck Road, and three on Grace Avenue; both Citibank and Chase have multiple branches in this tiny village.
Banks open branches where they know they will find money. Period. Economic downturn, Ms. Celender? The banks in your village aren’t closing and they’re staying open for only one reason – it’s profitable for them, all 12 of them, to be here in this village which you puzzlingly claim is suffering from a two year economic downturn.
The underlying cause of the mess in the commercial area of the Plaza is the abundant void of leadership, ability and vision demonstrated by this mayor and her de facto band of appointed and unqualified trustees who rubber stamp all that she says and does in return for their paychecks, family health insurance, pension benefits and brass car plaques. It’s not a dearth of money, or a population without resources, or a change in demographics, or even rent levels or taxes that are primary causes of the proliferation of “For Rent” signs.
Local government is responsible to create the playing field which allows a business to enter a community, function, and hopefully do so at a profit; local government has the responsibility to its commercial enterprises to furnish a fertile environment, provide advice and counsel, and when it can, incentives and moreover, involvement. That’s what leadership is all about.
Leadership isn’t about photo ops or getting another foolish grant to buy stick figure signs to “calm traffic” or to take two lane Great Neck Road down to one lane in each direction, or to waste time to adopt a foreign “sister” city or to have trustees “look into” an ordinance that the Plaza cannot enforce but will ban smokers in front of the mayor’s husband’s office building.
If Ms. Celender would spend any time walking around her village, she would find that it’s become dreary, shabby in parts, uninspiring, and its streets are covered by double parkers all day and copious bags of garbage all night. Virtually every national business that has come here has left – Omaha Steaks, General Nutrition, Boston Chicken, Cosi, Quesno’s, Cold Stone Creamery to name just a few. These are hardly “ma and pa stores” but rather businesses backed by successful national organizations with sophisticated marketing resources that were unable to survive in Jean Celender’s Plaza.
Moreover, lest we not forget some of the great local names that we have lost during Celender‘s tenure: Millie’s Restaurant (so special), the Gilliar Drug Store (so charming), the Old Fredericks (so much fun), and Florsheim Shoes (sure shop Great Neck, but no place left in this town for a man to buy shoes) and countless other long-time businesses, including the wonderful Pancho’s Restaurant which announced its impending closure in the past few days. Not one of the foregoing businesses could be helped by the so-called “Jeanious Team” running village hall.
Some businesses should fail because they are mismanaged or inappropriate for a community. Yet, could all of the foregoing, both local and national, be so incompetent as to fail in a community where the streets are covered with luxury cars, a dozen bank branches are profitable, and the one successful national business (excluding the essential service entities) to succeed sells designer coffee for $5 a cup during the Celender declared “economic downturn”.
If we want to bring back the charm and grace and quaintness of this community, we need competent and skilled leaders who are involved, who participate, and who are known to the merchants (ask any merchant in the Plaza to name the mayor or deputy mayor or any trustee – few, if any, can do that).
Our current “leaders” (forgive the term) run the Plaza as a private club built with opaque windows which allow for the illusion of their involvement through attendance at photo-ops or at events which cause photo-ops (Restaurant Week, Old Car Day et.al). Unless these events ring local cash registers, and in many cases they actually cause losses, they are merely propaganda for the mayor’s next taxpayer financed newsletter or picture fill-fluff for the local newspapers.
The baton of leadership in the Plaza has been passed from Mayors Wurman to Gussack to Rosegarten and now to Celender and somewhere along this 30-year journey of mostly uncontested elections, the mayor and the trustees voted themselves extraordinary benefits which included salaries, family health insurance, and pensions despite the fact that no other village in Great Neck ever needed such generous incentives to attract talented officials.
Thus, the commercial decline that we now have in the Plaza, the so-called “economic downturn,” has nothing to do with the economy and everything to do with the mayor and her paid apologists concocting a convenient excuse for negligent leadership and not an iota of vision.
For Ms. Celender to suggest that a perfunctory beautification program of potted flowers and strings of red lights attached to downtown lampposts, or that wall murals or shopping spree contests can alleviate decades of her mismanagement is foolish, if not insulting to the people who live and work in this village.
Those superficial and flimsy appurtenances cannot and will not create the profits that merchants require to stay in business. Only when local government meets its responsibilities by creating the fertile environment for businesses to invest in the Plaza, will it then be able to attract quality merchants who will put a viable product on the playing field, and then undoubtedly, a plethora of shoppers will gladly follow to spend the money that every indicator says they have in abundance.
Alan A. Gray
Great Nec
