> “Yearslong demolition and construction will destabilize nearby buildings, devastate seniors living adjacent to the massive construction zone, and have vast economic consequences on local business,” Lee added. “These are only a few of the issues that will erase Chinatown off the map.”

Construction noise in a city is not an excuse to prevent a project. It’s got to be the worst excuse you could come up with. I remember hearing a similar excuse being used earlier this year when the MTA needed to pick a location for a new power substation in Manhattan.

I think it’s possible the current mayor is intentionally trying to bring up the number of detainees in Rikers when he can probably afford to use other means to track them. But it’s also possible that 3000 is not a sufficient capacity/number of beds. Seems like perhaps the thing to do would be to consider additional complementary jails or expansion of the current jails they plan on building to allow for more capacity. The latter might be less feasible given the timeline since that might be a major change to the scope of those construction projects.

Inevitably someone will ask why are they closing Rikers. You can read about it here: https://rikers.cityofnewyork.us/faq/

The people of the South Bronx have dealt with so much already, now they want to build a jail. FOH

Far better excuse is: It's a bit shitty, but it's a prison. Why are we spending so much time fretting over this?

3,300 beds is not enough.

4 years of non-stop construction is by no means normal. That’s actually on the quicker timeline. The city is approving 7-10 year long construction to contractors who have no business building such large structures. Private developers build at quicker pace because they can’t afford a property in development for that long.

What exactly do you think a jail does? Building a jail more closely integrated with the community will make it much easier to visit family, meet with lawyers, connect with post-incarceration resources, and otherwise do the things that reduce recidivism and improve long-term outcomes. Rikers was a mistake from the very beginning.

We should focus on speeding up the courts so someone isn’t waiting 200+ days for their case to be heard.

Meanwhile it seems Adams is doing the opposite - gumming up the works as much as possible to increase prisoner counts so he can justify keeping the place open.

I don’t think closing the physical space would matter much, the vast majority of people that are being held on Rikers are being accused of pretty serious crimes. The solution shouldn’t be to release dangerous people pretrial just for a statistic. Speeding up the courts will get people sentenced and sent upstate (or wherever) where they can serve their actual time.

The plan has nothing to do with reducing recidivism and everything to do with business interests on the island and a lack of creative thinking for alternatives to rikers

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If it will integrate the community than why have they protested it so much. Let me guess you aren’t even from NYC

It’s laughable that the Reddit crowd thinks that most people living in this city would be okay with a jail being built in their neighborhood.

That’s not at all what it’s about since business options in such an isolated space with severe height restrictions aren’t great to begin with.

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Try 700+

FWIW, I agree. You can also add improve court efficiency to your list.

There’s already plans for a renewable energy power generation project there that are public. Space that is isolated yet proximate to the economic center of the country is incredibly rare and valuable and I’m not gonna debate that any further

BUILD A JAIL WHERE THE STATEN ISLAND YANKEES USED TO PLAY

Renewable energy projects won’t do anything for mysterious business interests and will make the city more resilient and energy independent which is all positive. Not sure how you can make that sound nefarious but I’m sure you’ll give it a shot.

The plant is privately owned Jesus Christ…the plan is detrimental to 4 nyc neighborhoods for the benefit of a private company developing public land it is nefarious

The plan is in no way detrimental to the four neighborhoods and in fact two of them already have jails on the exact site. Can’t say they’ve negatively impacted either lower Manhattan or downtown Brooklyn.

Ok you clearly aren’t aware of the details or impact of the plan. Good night

Are you? Because the information is extremely public and you haven’t actually refuted what I just said.

We should build the community jails for the less severe and non-violent crimes. A special focus on the ones who still have a good chance at reintegration and reform.

More severe cases and cases requiring more specialized services should still go to Riker’s.