Photo: QueensPost
July 1, 2013 Staff report
The party is coming to an end for the Family Entertainment Center.
The entertainment center, best known as a pool hall, is expected to leave its 48th Street and Barnett Avenue premises by the end of the year.
The building is being sold and its lease expires at the end of the year– and it is non-renewable.
The 2-story building, which is 53,000 sqf in size, was assessed at $1.035 million for the 2012/2103 year. The real estate firm Greiner Maltz is currently trying to find buyers.
The property also includes the space that was occupied by Pulse Fitness. Many Sunnyside/Woodside residents lost a great deal of money when the gym abruptly closed in April 2012.
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All information contained within this article is incorrect. The building is not being sold, the pool hall is not shutting its doors and the building is not for sale for 1.2 million dollars
well here’s hoping it doesn’t rise too high….when the “pool hall” first opened, it had a HUGE yellow sign that completely destroyed the city view, not to mention how ugly it was….ugh!…..and i believe the community board forced them to replace it with a smaller one…..in my opinion, for what it’s worth, putting in a trader joe’s or the like will clog up the streets in that immediate area further….once 48th street added all the stores…and Barnett became one way…the traffic in the area increaed to a disturbing degree…..a public pool would be nice if it didn’t cost anything…but then you’d have to worry about the rif-raf coming in from all over…..so you’d have to charge a fee…or keep it private ….and who is included in that privacy….what will the “dues” be…..as a single person i cannot afford sunnyside gardens park fee….will a pool fee be even hire…giving packages to families?….same goes for a parking garage…the guy at Queensboro Parking on Barrnett behind the Phipps charges $235 a month for parking and believe it or not $150. a month to chain your bike to the fence… will they compete and have affordable fees?…that would be good…but would they?……and sadly a green space may become a hang out for the recent increase in drunken workers falling asleep along Barnett Ave…..two level quaint affordable housing would be nice….with nice front gardens…it’s a quiet street and looks out to the recently vampt 48th street with its beautiful shrubbery and sunnyside gardens park that’s wonderfully peaceful at night….be nice to see some nice little houses ….and peaceful too.
Blue, if you think anyone is “taking over everything” and “killing off the older generation faster,” you need a reality check.
I haven’t taken anything over except the apartment I rent, the price of which my landlord determined, not me.
And rent prices are always changing everywhere in NYC, not to mention constant housing cost changes everywhere in the country. People have always had to move when the financial situation changed faster than their personal finances.
I know Sunnyside is probably your WHOLE WORLD, but there’s more to it than you realize. You live in the biggest city on the planet, yet you want to pretend you live in a quiet little village somewhere in the hills. Get real.
Old School Sunnysider
Because I understand that old buildings are replaced by new ones? Or would you rather the current building just decay? I personally would like a pool or a community amenity – but realistically its not probable.
Also, I don’t even work in Queens so please explain to me how I’d make a “buck” off of anything built here. Or are you just a grumpy old person who can’t imagine that other people who care about the neighborhood may have differing ideas as to what might be good for it?
Maybe I’m weird but I’ve never associated a pool hall with “family entertainment”.
There goes Krissi the real estate agent, looking to make a buck all in the name of “progress”!
Yeah!
Boobies! Employment comes to town!
We could use a new strip club.
I think its worthy of research, will look into the logistics a little deeper.
Elected officials may be sympathetic and interested in the cause …
Not everyone may be able to donate $90, but some may be able to donate more while others less and hopefully balance it out, etc.
Its a thought at least …. it would be so nice if Sunnyside rallied to keep treesin the neighborhood.
I like the new Loudati park…but its so treeless and looks like so much pavement….
Well, that would be one way to turn the area into a green space.
@comma
Here is what is really happening: Young people with lots of money are taking over everything in sight for themselves, leaving the people who sustained the neighborhood they now find so overwhelmingly appealing to continue their existence any way they possibly can. The older people, still making what they always made now have to travel farther away to find prices they can afford, thus their lives are made harder.
This is the young people’s unknowing way of killing off the older generation faster, so they can spread out and tell themselves how wonderful they are without anyone around them correcting their misconception.
Excuse us if we don’t go to the gallows happily for your sakes, we just don’t know how to die silently so you don’t notice.
We were brought up to respect our elders, not tred on them and complain they make a lumpy road and slow us down.
What’s the deal with that ‘restaurant’ across the street from this place – there is something really shady about it.
It’s interesting to see that the majority of people posting are probably from sunnyside gardens and probably too selfish to see sunnyside is not only made up by this particular area. I cant imagine anyone other than developers being able to afford the hefty price tag: 1.03 million its a dam shame but im all for a green space!
lol, comma
I’d like a pool but I think apartments are fine. People have to learn to expect new developments in their neighborhoods.
However, I’d expect the pool to be public and not related to only people who live in the Gardens.
@SM: Why don’t you contact JVB office and ask them to get the city to purchase the land for a green space? Also, the east side access project has caused lots of disturbances for Sunnyside, maybe the local pols could lead on the LIRR to buy the building and make it a great space?
Here’s an idea: Instead of letting young people move in and support the neighborhood’s economy, we should just stick with the old people we have now and let everyone die off so that we can turn the entire neighborhood into a big cemetery. We already have a good start with the cemeteries on either side. Why stop there?
@Chris No, I won’t. I can’t afford to park in a lot, but other people can. It would get cars off the street.
Others care what they build, you don’t have to.
@SM I love the idea, too. I would donate, for sure. I would help raise funds any way I could.
What about it, Preservation Alliance? Need a new committee?
@SM love the buy it back and make it a green space idea!
This is Sunnyside- a community filled with hard-working folks that are scrapping pennies together to pay their rent, feed their children and enjoy some leisure time that comes far and few between. I could careless on what they build!
*Donating $90 (SM), your dreaming, get a life!
*Trader Joe’s- al la another poster “the area is an armpit”, no parking, no transportation.
*Parking Lot- when the prices are posted you all will be bitching about the hefty charge
–
Anybody who says they don’t want a pool isn’t “pool ready” that’s why.
Sunnyside has about 30K residents and assume the cost is 1.8 million….if each person donated about $60….the neighborhood could buy it back…donate another $30 to tear down the existing structure and put in a green public park space or community garden ….. developers are not the only ones with money….collectively, Sunnyside has it too….
If the community got together and showed this sort of interest, I bet some of the stores would contribute too, e.g. 10K from TD Bank, 10K from some others (because its a good headline story for them too and that amt. is minimal to them)…..
It takes organization and effort and time (sadly things I have no ‘extra’ of)….but I don’t think it is out of the realm of possibility.
The value of that land will quadruple in 25 years, if Sunnyside wants to preserve green space, now is the time to buy it back while collective funds still might have a chance at it.
Garage/parking lot.
BOOKSTORE!!!!
build equa-volley courts!!
good one, Thurman!
@Anonymous
Let me guess, you made that comment on a computer as well. Let me take another guess: anonymous isn’t your real name. And you accuse others of hiding?
Thanks, a bravura display of hypocrisy always makes me smile.
@Thurman You can get all the help you need at the counseling center above the North Pole on Queens Blvd. Sliding scale. Good luck.
Trader’s Joe’s would be a really good addition to the neighborhood.
@ 86 met “sarcasm is the lowest form of wit” why don’t u do something about our neighborhood instead of constantly hiding behind ur computer?
Whoever thinks Sunnyside doesn’t need a pool is not a true Sunnysider and should gtfo
How about a physiatrist office to help all of the posters on here
The building should be torn down to make way to a shrine to Sunnyside’s future patron saint, JVB.
Please, no grocery stores. The roads and sidewalks on this side of theLIRR tracks are already choking with traffic on its way to the Northern Blvd strip. Must peace and quiet always be sacrificed in the name of commerce? Doesn’t anyone else value it?
I, for one, mourn the loss of the restful atmosphere the Gardens used to have. The place was built as a refuge from the unhealthy atmosphere of Manhattan. The original purpose of the building was to keep automobile traffic on the edges of the neighborhood, so people in the gardens would walk to the edge of the neighborhood and drive away from it. Then drive to the edge and walk home. All the garages are along Barnett just for this purpose.
I would argue the building should primarily serve the local population in some way, not seek to draw for people from elsewhere. But, then, no one is asking me, especially real estate brokers.
Whole Foods
Sunnyside had a pool years ago, before I moved here. Believe it closed around 1949. Also believe it was near QB and the #7 tracks. Don’t think this would be an ideal place for a pool.
Not surprising. Unless you lived within walking distance or had a car, it was very difficult to get there. The MTA bus that stops nearby is undependable at best.
@Blue, me neither, I find it so lazy! No one should be DRIVING to the park, it’s walkable from anywhere in Sunnyside.
For so many reason, LIRR, bad surrounded by industrial stuff, I don’t see a developer building a luxury condo on that corner. Although I like that idea since that is a very bleak corner. 48th in general is nasty after 39th avenue.
A garage. I actually liked the pool hall.
@anon I agree! Can’t stand it when people choke up the blocks around here to get to the park.
Trader Joe’s
I think the new 9 story building on 43rd St. will encourage other developers to challenge the zoning restrictions and keep building higher which is why that 43rd St. building should have been stopped. I’m sure the Phoenix building developer wished he could have gone higher. I guess you need to grease the right palms….
I hope those wanting a parking lot want it to help the serious lack of parking in sunnyside and not because they want to drive a few blocks to sunnyside gardens park instead of walking!
I should add that Community Board 2 has had a new station house for the 108th in its capital budget for as long as I can remember. The board felt it should be more centrally located, not tucked away in LIC at the westernmost part of the 108th in what had been the least populated area. I doubt that the powers that be would consider the 48th Street property any more centrally located as it is less than half a block from the 114th Precinct.
build another school. we’re going to need it, inevitably.
Have you ever seen how the police park around the station houses? Check out the 108th or the 114th (35th Street at the GCP). Their personal cars as well as the squad cars are on the sidewalks, double-parked, at hydrants… Don’t wish for that.
The most intelligent comment of the day award goes to Michael Kilpatrick.
Brilliant suggestion.
It would be a perfect spot for a new police precinct. It would keep the neighborhood safer. Our police precinct is located in Long Island City and with the growth going on there, they will be spreading the current police force too thin.
@ Bill. I tried to look it up on my iPhone without success. I’ll find out tomorrow and will post answer.
So many good memories at this place with our family. Really! Despite the standard connotations of a pool hall, it is a place where you could actually play, the food’s not bad, and the staff reasonably friendly. I’ll miss it.
Well, we are in for an invasion then. I thought it couldn’t get any worse, but it seems I was wrong. Its no fun living through a revolution, I mean a redevelopment.
Oh no…there will be an awful building there. What is the max story that they can put up? Dorothy, do you know?
Unfortunately, it was not included in the historic district. It was originally built as a two-story garage, then was used as a cosmetics factory, a typewriter ribbon factory and a garage for a limousine company before the gym and billiard hall. It would be great for the community if it were to revert to parking but the hefty price tag might preclude that.
I live next door an this place, It generated skells. It was an armpit. What could use a cemetary there.. so it can finnaly be quiet.. forever
Well, I think we need a parking lot, but a pool would be nice. Especially if it were on the roof, properly screened from train, of course.
Pulse Fitness leaving overnight was hilarious. Classic scam, Place charged 100 bucks for a whole year and packed the place up to the point where you couldn’t use a single machine.
How about opening an indoor pool for sunnyside and charge for membership? Sunnyside needs a place with a pool.
The developers will put any damn monstrosity they want to there if they grease the right palms. Zoning laws are only for poor saps who, say for example, try to open up a dance studio for kids in an empty store front.
Good riddance but now how long will it remain vacant?
@ mike – what else do you think they’re gonna put there???? KA-CHING!!! got to make room for some more carpetbaggers (aka hipsters)
I hope it is part of the landmark district. The gardens could really use it as it was originally intended, a parking lot!
Lets hope the real-estate scum do not try to put a 50 story luxe condo tower there!