The U.S. Open Is King of New York. Could It Do More for Queens?

The U.S. Open tennis match will have a good time the fiftieth anniversary of equal prize cash for women and men within the occasion, a part of a legacy of equality and inclusion of which the Open is extraordinarily proud. But many shut neighbors of the U.S. Open haven’t all the time felt so included.

On 111th Street and Roosevelt Avenue, within the shadow of the No. 7 prepare’s elevated tracks, 1000’s of individuals go about their enterprise through the U.S. Open whereas having nearly no interplay with some of the fashionable and worthwhile sporting occasions on this planet.

Kamal Alma and his household have owned the 111 Corona Discount & Candy Store, lower than half a mile from Arthur Ashe Stadium, for over 40 years. Occasionally, through the week of qualifying and the 2 weeks of competitors, a number of the occasion’s short-term employees filter into Alma’s retailer. But he hardly ever sees tennis followers there and doesn’t achieve any noticeable uptick in enterprise from the occasion. His youngsters like tennis, however tickets for the primary draw are too costly.

“Plus, I’m working all the time,” he stated. “Who knows, maybe someday I’ll go.”

The U.S. Open is one in every of New York City’s landmark occasions, drawing worldwide consideration to Queens whereas producing large earnings and using about 7,000 seasonal employees from round New York. But for some, it may very well be a greater neighbor.

“We are happy it’s here,” stated Donovan Richards, the Queens borough president. “It’s definitely an economic driver for the borough, for the city. But if it’s not benefiting the local community, what good is that for the people of Queens? When the three weeks is over, we’re still here.”

Richards stated that he had only in the near past begun to dig deeper into how the U.S. Open engaged with the area people and that he deliberate to attend an occasion hosted by the United States Tennis Association on Tuesday to debate these issues. He stated he acknowledged and appreciated that the Open donated cash to Flushing Meadows Corona Park, on which the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center sits in its 40-acre nook, and offered funds to boost area people tasks. He simply needs to see extra of it, commensurate with the large sums produced by the occasion every year.

“I look forward to sitting down with the leadership to really think about ways this partnership can benefit the fans, the tournament and the borough,” he stated. “Not to say they don’t give support. We need to see that support ramped up to address inequities outside the park and in the park.”

More than 888,000 spectators attended the U.S. Open final 12 months, and at the very least that many are anticipated this 12 months at an occasion that’s in some methods an annual distinction of tradition and sophistication.

Many followers will drive there on the crowded parkways and highways adjoining to the stadium. Some will experience the commuter rails from Manhattan, Long Island and New Jersey, and others will squeeze onto the No. 7 prepare from Grand Central Station. And after they have seen the final ball struck for the day, most will make their means again in the identical style, with out setting foot within the close by streets and eating places of Corona, Flushing or Jackson Heights or ambling into the adjoining park, the place soccer and volleyball gamers combine with in-line skaters, joggers and picnickers.

“We never lose sight of the fact that we are in a public park,” stated Daniel Zausner, the National Tennis Center’s chief working officer. “We want to be a bigger player in the community, always.”

The U.S.T.A. presents free admission to every week {of professional} tennis through the qualifying match earlier than the primary draw, offering a chance to draw future followers.

Omar Minaya, the previous normal supervisor of the Mets baseball membership and now a senior adviser for the Yankees, grew up in Corona only a few blocks from the place the Open web site is now. He and his pals performed soccer and baseball within the park earlier than the Open moved to Flushing Meadows in 1978, and boxing was a well-liked sport in Corona, too. Few of the youngsters performed tennis. Minaya stated he nonetheless noticed a constructive total impact from the occasion however acknowledged that it was not for everybody.

“It’s brought a lot of attention to Queens, and that’s good,” he stated. “But most of the people that go to the Open, they aren’t going into Corona. It’s more of a corporate crowd than a local crowd.”

Lew Sherr, the chief government of the united statesT.A., stated financial exercise from the Open filtered throughout the area, and he pointed to a decade-old examine that put the annual financial influence of the match at $750 million for the New York City space. He estimated {that a} comparable examine now would double that determine.

But in Corona and close by Elmhurst, two areas devastated by the Covid-19 pandemic, many residents have little or no interplay with the U.S. Open.

Carlos Inga owns the Super Star II meals stand in Corona Plaza, simply off Roosevelt Avenue and 103rd Street. He has lived in Queens for 20 years however has by no means been to the U.S. Open, nor have any of his pals, he stated. Sometimes he’ll see workers sporting U.S. Open shirts and badges, however hardly ever any followers, until they get off on the improper subway cease by chance.

“There is definitely a disconnect,” Richards, the borough president, stated. “Although the stadium sits less than a mile away, it has no connection. Those are the questions we will be raising on Tuesday. The same goes for the airports and the new soccer stadium. How do they impact the neighborhood?”

Since transferring to the Corona and Flushing space from its earlier location on the tony West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, Queens, the U.S. Open has sat in its nook of the park pumping out income for the nonprofit U.S.T.A., which pays town a proportion in hire for the privilege. In 2022, the occasion raised $472 million and paid near $5 million in hire. The U.S.T.A. builds and pays for the infrastructure, together with the stadiums, and greater than 40 p.c of the 7,000 seasonal workers are from Queens.

“I love working here,” stated Yvette Varga, a daily seasonal upkeep employee on the Open, who’s initially from Ozone Park in Queens however now lives within the Bronx. “We would always go to this park, and still, every year, we have at least one cookout here. So for me, it’s like home.”

Some workers haven’t had such a positive expertise. In 2022, three workers accused a U.S. Open subcontractor of wage theft through the earlier 12 months’s occasion, and the funds have been in the end restored after Zausner’s intervention.

“I wish I had known in September so I could have acted upon it then, instead of hearing about it 11 months later,” Zausner stated.

In 2019, Scott Stringer, the New York City comptroller on the time, charged that the National Tennis Center had underreported $31 million in income from 2014 to 2017 and subsequently had underpaid hire by greater than $300,000. The U.S.T.A., in a letter to the deputy comptroller dated Nov. 16, 2020, and obtained by The New York Times by a Freedom of Information Law request, concurred with a shortfall of $143,296.61 and paid it.

The N.T.C. additionally donates funds for the maintenance of the park, however extra consideration appears to be targeted nearer to the tennis heart, the place park benches alongside the trail surrounding the perimeter fence bore “wet paint” indicators on Tuesday. Farther away, the paint was chipped off the benches and litter was extra evident.

“If you look, it’s not as nice as you move away from the stadium,” stated Tina Chen, a Flushing resident and a senior at Yale University who was strolling her canine, Coco, within the park. “I think it’s good to have the U.S. Open here, for sure. But maybe they could do more to fix up the rest of the area, too.”