Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee:

My name is Lowell Kern. I am an attorney in private practice and have been a resident of Chelsea for 19 and a half years. For that entire time, I have resided in the building complex known as London Terrace Gardens , located between 23 rd and 24 th Streets, and 9 th and 10 th Avenues. For the past 13 years, I have resided at 440 West 24 th Street , which happens to be the same building in which my representative to the Council, Christine Quinn, resides.

A week and a half ago, on June 2, the day before this committee held public hearings on this topic, Councilmember Quinn plastered our entire building complex, ten buildings of 17 floors each, with notices, on Council letterhead, urging residents to attend her press conference on June 3 and to attend this committee’s hearings and to raise their voices against the proposed Sports and Convention facility. In the almost 20 years I’ve lived in London Terrace, this was the first time that I can remember a Council member papering the building in this way – not Councilmember Quinn, and not now-State Senator Tom Duane before her, certainly – and their have been issues, such as the rent control guidelines, that effect the residents of our complex much more directly. So I asked myself why Councilmember Quinn was so vehemently opposed to the building of this stadium that she presumably used taxpayer funds to tell her constituents how to think about this issue, instead of representing their views. No matter how I looked at it, I could only come up with one conclusion – Councilmember Quinn doesn’t want this stadium in her backyard. Well, I’m here to testify today because my representative to the City Council clearly does not represent me on this issue. Councilmember Quinn, if you are here, I believe this stadium should be built in our shared backyard.

First, as I stated, I’ve been living in Chelsea for almost twenty years. In that time, I’ve seen 11 movie screens go up within half a block of each other on 23 rd Street . I’ve seen a Lamston’s (and I trust you all remember Lamston’s) turn into a Gap. I’ve seen smaller chain restaurants open – Dallas B-B-Q, Patsy’s Pizza, Boston Market. I’ve seen 8 th Avenue take over for Christopher Street as Main Street for the gay community in Manhattan . And those are the smaller scale changes. Since the opening of Chelsea Piers, you can’t ride the M23 crosstown without seeing someone with either a golf bag or hockey equipment. The opening of art galleries on the far west side of the neighborhood has not only developed a former desolate area, but has brought in weekend traffic from suburbia the likes of which our neighborhood never could have imagined. Indeed, the parking garage beneath my building, which used to be deserted on weekends as people cleared out of the city appears to be even more full on the weekend than it is during the week. Before the Internet bubble burst in 2001, the warehouse space in the West 20s along 11 th Avenue was being discovered as a new haven for startup companies. Although I don’t have the information, I’m certain this committee can obtain it, but I would be shocked if, looking back 20 years, property values in Chelsea have not grown at a higher rate than anywhere else in Manhattan .

And nobody has ever seriously complained that this growth, and the accompanying traffic it has brought to my neighborhood, is a bad thing, either culturally or socially or economically or for any other reason.

Has any resident of Chelsea objected to the increase in the number of restaurant choices along 8 th Avenue, along with the aforementioned chains, that have come to a neighborhood that used to feature the Empire Diner and little else, even though more restaurants means more traffic? Eleven movie screens obviously has increased traffic, especially on weekends. Further, the theater between 8 th and 9 th Avenues is frequently used for screenings and premieres and the red carpet and the paparazzi and all the rest that comes with it frequently blocks the sidewalk on a Monday or Tuesday night. But it makes my neighborhood a more exciting place to live, not the deserted ghost town it was twenty years ago. The production studios at Chelsea Piers, particularly the Law & Order franchise, frequently shoots in and around our neighborhood, inconveniencing people who park on the street on a somewhat regular basis. But again, it makes the neighborhood that much more interesting to live in.

But a proposal to develop the last area of wasted space on an island where ever square inch is precious is being met with resistance for, supposedly, all of these reasons. What this stadium proposal can do is bring life to an area of Manhattan where the Javits Center sits in isolation. The stadium itself is not the entirety of the plan as I understand it, simply the centerpiece of a plan that will include restaurants, office space, housing – in short, everything the neighborhood now lacks. It will make the far west 30s a destination, just as Chelsea is now a destination – something it wasn’t 20 years ago.

And what impact will this development of the far West 30s have on Chelsea ? Well, what impact did the development of Chelsea have on neighboring areas? The proposed facility to be built over the train yards at 31 st to 33 rd Streets is, at a minimum, 7 blocks north and 2 blocks west of my apartment. Are the people seven blocks south and 2 blocks east of the art galleries in the West 20s affected by the increased weekend traffic brought in by the galleries? New York City is unique in that if you go two blocks in one direction, you are in a completely different neighborhood. The Flatiron District along Fifth Avenue was developed almost 15 years ago, but it took the large warehouse stores years later to develop Sixth Avenue and bridge the gap between Fifth Avenue and Seventh Avenue . And none of this affected Eighth Avenue , which needed the Chelsea renaissance I spoke of above to become the bustling, alive place it is today. And still, Ninth Avenue remains a sleepy street in the high teens. So I fail to understand why residents of Chelsea are so concerned about the development of the most remote section of Manhattan , an area almost ten blocks north and three avenues west of the center of their universe. In Manhattan terms, that is almost a different time zone.

When 60,000 people descend on Yankee Stadium, I would guess that a majority of them use mass transit. Both from what I understand about this proposal and from anecdotal information from my fellow Jets fans, I would expect the same to be true for football games at the new stadium. I remember years ago, growing up on the Port Washington branch of the LIRR, taking the Shea Stadium Special to Jets games, first with my father and then with friends – “This train goes to Shea Stadium only. This train does not go through to New York .” But for those that do drive, based on my experience at Yankee Stadium, they aren’t going to park ten blocks south and three avenues away to walk to the stadium. They will use the existing parking garages in the area that already serve Madison Square Garden and the Javits Center and whatever limited parking structures are included in the proposal. And if fans are driving, they aren’t going to come down to 23 rd Street after the game – they are going to be heading crosstown to get back to Long Island, straight out of the Lincoln Tunnel back to Jersey, or up the West Side Highway to the GWB or to Westchester. They aren’t going to bother those of us living in Chelsea .

I also have a belief as to why THIS is the right solution for this urban outpost. Twenty years ago, when I moved to Chelsea , I was a junior at NYU. The Jets had just left Shea Stadium for the swamps of New Jersey . Pretty quickly thereafter, a proposal was put forth, nowhere near as developed as this one, to build a Sportsplex in Queens , to lure the Jets back. There was talk of taking the auto body yards in Corona under eminent domain and build a facility that would be an adjunct to Shea. A fraternity brother of mine was the son of the then Borough President of Queens , which gave me unique access to people to conduct interviews for the thesis I was writing on the subject. I regret that in preparing for my testimony here today I could not locate a copy of my thesis. However, my conclusion at the time was that it made no sense to spend city money to undertake such a project for a building that would be used for a limited number of dates each year. Much of this same analysis applies to this proposal, with one major exception. And it is this exception that makes this proposal a winner.

Assuming that Chad Pennington is the next coming of Joe Montana, something all Jets fans sincerely hope, the Jets would use the new building, at most, for 12 dates a year – 2 preseason games, 8 regular season games and 2 playoff games. Now add in how many other times the stadium would be filled to capacity – a Super Bowl, a major college bowl game, two or three other college football games, perhaps (Army-Navy, a kickoff classic, perhaps one other), two dates for the NCAA men’s basketball championship. That’s a total of 19 dates for sporting events.

What other events need a stadium sized facility? Rock concerts? How many bands are there that can actually fill a stadium? Bruce Springsteen can fill a stadium, but what are the chances that New Jersey ’s favorite son would abandon Giants Stadium to play a lengthy in Manhattan ? True, Springsteen closed his last tour at Shea, but part of the logic behind that was that he was playing baseball stadiums and he wanted to play Yankee Stadium and the dates he wanted coincided with the playoffs. But even then, Springsteen played ten dates at Giants Stadium and only three at Shea. And that was his first stadium tour in 17 years. So even if I concede that Springsteen could play the new facility, it would likely be for two nights, tops. What other bands can fill a stadium? The Rolling Stones. The Dave Matthews Band. Madonna is playing Madison Square Garden , even though Giants Stadium is available. The same for Prince. In fact, any band that anyone can point to as being likely to play the new facility, I’ll ask, if that’s the case, why haven’t they played Giants Stadium? The answer is, because, in reality, they can’t fill a stadium show. When a band sells multiple nights at a venue, a percentage of the audience is repeat customers. So three shows at MSG doesn’t mean 60,000 fans, it means closer to 50,000 fans. And which sounds better to the band’s publicity people, three sold out nights at “The World’s Most Famous Arena” or one night at a brand new stadium that didn’t even sell out?

So adding concerts to our total of sporting events, we have maybe 25 dates out of the year right now that the stadium is being used. The Republican Convention would likely use the stadium as well if it was in Manhattan , but not if it was anywhere else. It was this analysis that led me to conclude 20 years ago that it made no sense to build a stadium in Queens . So what is different about this facility?

The answer is obvious – the Javits Center . New York lags far behind other cities in available convention space. Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, all fine cities in their own right, but none of which are New York, draw major conventions that won’t even look at New York because despite all our city can offer, we can’t offer convention facilities large enough to satisfy the needs of the various trade groups.

Again, this committee has heard and will hear testimony from people far more knowledgeable than I am on this issue. But it seems to me that if the sole issue before this committee right now was “should we allocate funds to build a platform over the rail yards to increase the space of the Javits Center?” this hearing room would be empty, save for the committee members and their staff. No community groups would oppose making the sure that the best city in the world had the best convention facilities in the world. Only because this convention facility is going to be used for a total of 30 dates out of the year as a sports or concert facility, as the home to an NFL team that has never had its own home even though it calls itself a New York team, is there any opposition.

In summation, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, the revitalization of a neighborhood is a long-term project. It is something I have lived through and watched and seen the results. There are few things more rewarding than walking around and seeing life where there was none. There is no life on the far west side right now. This committee has the chance to do something about that. This committee has the chance to bring life to a blighted neighborhood, to insure that the best city in the world has the best convention facilities in the world, and can bring home our football team that has been in exile. With the money being put up by the Jets, the cost to the city to do this is less than any other proposal that will ever come down the pike to do something with this area. And the impact on the surrounding neighborhoods is minimal. I urge you to approve this proposal.

Thank you.