Queens leaders, residents propose COVID-19 testing in parking lots, empty expanses
/
Councilmember Donovan Richards proposed putting a COVID-19 testing site in Roy Wilkins Park to serve people in Southeast Queens. Photo by tdorante10 via Wikimedia Commons
By Rachel Vick
Queens leaders and everyday residents are calling on the city to take advantage of unused spaces and vacant lots in the fight against COVID-19.
On Tuesday, Council members Donovan Richards and Adrienne Adams urged the city to continue building testing sites in Southeast Queens, which currently lacks any place to get tested aside from local hospitals.
Richards proposed building sites at parking lots at York College and Roy Wilkins Park, and an expanse from Beach 32nd to Beach 56th Street. Adams also suggested using empty parking lots.
“People are dying out here and we don’t have time to waste,” she said.
Zip codes in Southeast Queens and the eastern portion of the Rockaway Peninsula are among the places with the most COVID-19 cases in the city, according to data published Wednesday and analyzed by The New York Times. Zip code 11691, which includes Far Rockaway, had 436 cases as of April — the 11th highest caseload of any zip code in the city, according to the data. Zip code 11432 in Jamaica had 405 cases, the 15th highest total in the city.
The state and city have ordered all but essential workers to stay home, which means parking lots, stadiums and other large venues are vacant and can potentially be used as hospital or testing sites. The state has already announced a plan to build a temporary hospital at the Aqueduct Race Track in Ozone Park, while the city has moved to transform Billie Jean King Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows Corona Park into a medical center for people with mild to moderate cases of COVID-19.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has considered using the campuses of St. John’s University and Queens College for medical purposes. Hospitals nationwide, including at various sites in Queens, are setting up tents outside emergency rooms to conduct testing and screening.
One Eagle reader submitted a proposal to turn a parking lot at a Douglaston shopping center into a medical center.
“The huge empty parking lot at Douglaston shopping center above Fairway might be able to be used for medical purposes during the pandemic,” wrote Robert Cecere, Jr. “All of the stores there have been out of business for a while.”
Other jurisdictions have begun taking that approach.
Nashville’s Vanderbilt University Medical Center, for example, has used a parking garage as a treatment site.
Fairgrounds are being repurposed not only for medical purposes, but as a housing option for homeless residents. An exhibit hall in Santa Clara, California will be used to house up to 80 people experiencing homelessness
Seattle’s CenturyLink Field, home of the Seahawks, is being transformed into a 150-bed field hospital.
