"Councilwoman Ung, Don’t “Flush” Us Out"
Dear Council Member Ung,
I've loved Flushing before I could form the word in my mouth.
I knew the shove and shuffle of Main Street, bakery windows filmed over with steam. Women arguing over the price of scallions and roast duck gleaming in storefront glass, the wet sting of the fish market in the morning. I knew what it was to hear Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, and English all on one block and never once feel confused about where I belonged. Before I knew the geography of my parents' homeland, I knew Flushing.
Now, what is at stake is Flushing itself. Not just its storefronts or sidewalks, but its ability to remain a place where working-class immigrant families can still afford to live, work, and belong as development pressure and rising rents close in.
That danger is already here, and Metropolitan Park is making it worse. The $8 billion casino-hotel complex proposed for the Citi Field parking lots is being sold as opportunity: jobs, green space, economic growth. But in Flushing and Corona, more than 75 percent of residents are renters, and over 15,800 already spend more than half their income on rent. A 2025 analysis warned that Metropolitan Park could put more than 50,000 renters at risk of displacement. Its casino-centered design would worsen air quality, traffic, and neighborhood well-being — and according to anti-displacement organizers, disproportionately fuel gambling addiction among the very Asian American residents it claims to serve.
Flushing cannot be improved by pushing out the people who make it possible.
This is one of those rare places where immigrant life is not translated, softened, or made convenient for outsiders. It is loud. Dense. Specific. It asks you to keep up. Even my grandparents, who do not speak a word of English, can move through Flushing with confidence: buy groceries, ask for directions, read a menu, recognize themselves in the world around them. What people now call "vibrant" was not gifted by a rendering or a ribbon-cutting. It was built, piece by piece, by working-class immigrants who turned storefronts into livelihoods and streets into memory.
Metropolitan Park is coming, and you voted for it. That means you now owe this community something more than a “yes” vote. Fight for binding anti-displacement protections before the first shovel hits the ground, not vague promises made after the fact. Homes local families can actually afford. Tenant protections before people are pushed out. Shields for immigrant-owned small businesses. Community land trusts. Real community benefit agreements with teeth, not talking points. You helped open this door: now make sure it doesn't close on the people who built this neighborhood.
Flushing is not valuable despite its people: it is valuable because of them. So, I implore you: guide change with enough courage and care that, years from now, the children growing up here will still be able to recognize this place as theirs.
Sincerely,
A Chinese New Yorker
