We are Foodtown of Prospect Heights located at 632 Vanderbilt Avenue Brooklyn NY and we are writing to inform you that we OBJECT to Vanderbilt open streets. We are a large supermarket that has served our community for almost 40 years and we have watched this neighborhood grow and develop.
During COVID quarantine and for the years after, DOT has organized with some members of the community “Vanderbilt Open Streets” which means that this major avenue is closed off to all traffic. This may have been marginally beneficial to some restaurants at the time but not for us, it impedes our trucks and deliveries for receiving the food and merchandise for the community. It obstructs customers’ vehicles including elderly and disabled, Access-a-rides and any other form of transportation, limiting the times that these elderly and disabled are able to purchase their food. It also impedes regular vehicle traffic which impedes our business and creates more hurdles for us and our employees to reach the workplace.
Our neighborhood merchants located between Park Place and Prospect Place all agree that Vanderbilt open streets provide little if any benefit but creates obstructions to running their businesses as well, save for 1 business which supports it.
In summary, we object to the closing of Vanderbilt Avenue. It creates many complications for the community and many agree that it provides very little benefit.