Meet me on the Sunnyside of the tracks.
Queens’ newest public plaza is open beneath the 7 train in Sunnyside, on Queens Blvd. at 46th St.
“It looks amazing,” said Rachel Thieme, the executive director of Sunnyside Shines, the local business improvement district, which will manage the plaza. “It’s been overflowing with people.”
The new plaza features 16 planters with seasonal flowers, such as coleus and salvia, which will be swapped out for evergreen bushes in the winter.
“It’s very jungle-y,” said Thieme.
“It felt like a dark under-utilizied area, and now it’s a really colorful vibrant place.”
The plaza also has 12 tables, each with two chairs.
Sunnyside Shines will pay the Neighborhood Plaza Partnership, a non-profit that employs formerly incarcerated and homeless New Yorkers, to clean the plaza and lock up the tables and chairs at night.
The small public space, unveiled Tuesday, is one of two that the BID plans to create under the elevated tracks, in cooperation with the Department of Transportation.
A twin plaza will open this fall at 40th St. and Queens Blvd., Thieme said.
The public plazas — part of a program launched by the city in 2008 — have caused an uproar in Queens before.
A Transportation Department plaza on 37th Road, between 73rd and 74th Sts. in Jackson Heights, divided the community between South Asian merchants and open space proponents, before a merchants’ group took over its stewardship.
But Sunnyside’s plazas won’t impede any local thruways, and Thieme said she didn’t foresee the plazas attracting any controversy.
“Everyone is welcome to use them,” she said.”Sunnyside doesn’t have a lot of public spaces.”
