Public Realm Boards March

In the palette presented, magnolia is a beloved species by the Chinese, and Dogwood, honeysuckle, St. John's Wort, and hosta were good choices too. However, since white flowers are used in funerals in Asian culture, too many white flowers in the planting palette might not be a good idea.

Chinese people love anything with yellow or red flowers, foliage or fruits. Would male ginkgo, Chinese scholar trees work? Evergreen trees like pine or cypress also have positive motives. Shrub-wise, maybe yew, which has red fruits, or Hakone grass, which has bamboo-like leaves. It would be nice to have some daffodils too, since that's a popular purchase during Chinese New Year. If you have to stick with this palette, maybe you can choose other varieties that have colorful blooms?

1. It would be unsafe for the local community members in Chinatown, if there were no gates on the two ends of the White Street Arcade. Also, a gate of each end of the Arcade could ensure the security level of the businesses inside the Arcade from being vandalized or robbed outside of their business hours.
2. There is homeless epidemic in the vicinity of Chinatown. The benches in the rendering seem way too comfortable for the homeless and the mentally unstable to sleep in at night. The new Mamdani administration introduced a policy that it would not enforce the homeless and the unstable to be placed in shelter. The aftermath of this policy, plus the high comfort level of the Arcade, it will definitely attract the homeless and the mentally unstable to sleep there at night and loiter during daytime.
3. Are there 24-hour security guards patrolling in the area? Are there going to be security cameras? If so, how many are planned to be installed?
4. In the presentation, it mentions that the use of trees will obscure the Arcade roof. In this case, will the trees block the visibility of the security cameras?
5. The high comfort level of this jail demonstrates unfairness to the residents in Chung Pak Building and residential buildings on Baxter Street. There have already been at least 10 homeless shelters surrounding Chinatown. A new jail like this, with such a comfortable and cozy Arcade, will attract more homeless and mentally unstable individuals to hang out here, causing more and severer security and safety concerns for the local community members, especially women, children and seniors.
6. You failed to mention the commercial spaces in the Arcade. You only mentioned that there are 20,000 sq.ft. of commercial spaces, 6,000 sq.ft of which will be reserved for Chung Pak Building. However, what about the other community members in Chinatown? Will there be any of the leftover 14,000 sq.ft of commercial spaces reserved and allocated to other community members. Because as residents of the community of Chinatown, we deserve a place to prosper our own local businesses.