By Ryan Schwach
Governor Kathy Hochul is allocating $5 million to Astoria’s Variety Boys & Girls Club to build a new clubhouse, expand the nonprofit’s programming and build new affordable housing, making the Astoria location the largest club in the country.
The governor announced the funding to a larger crowd than such budget events would normally bring because it was made alongside the assemblymember who currently represents Astoria’s Variety Boys & Girls Club – mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani.
The funding will allow the club to expand from 4,000 kids served to 16,000 with a new 14-story facility.
“Our young people still need creative outlets, they need a place to go,” said Hochul. “We do not want them in the streets, because sometimes trouble lurks in the streets. Bring them indoors, give them a place to just get to be friends with each other.”
The new facility will include a new sports arena, a new swimming pool and the borough’s first planetarium.
It will also help fund the construction of 200 affordable housing units on the site.
“One out of four young people who attend the Boys and Girls Club in the state of New York will be coming through these doors,” said the club’s CEO, former Councilmember Costa Constantinides. “We are going to be able to provide them with the first planetarium in Queens, a 1,500 seat arena, a regulation pool, a theater, art spaces and incubator spaces.”
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards and State Senators Michael Gianaris and Kristen Gonzalez also applauded the funding alongside Hochul.
Mamdani, who attended the announcement in his role as a state legislator and not as a candidate for mayor, called the project “transformative.”
“We are talking about the marriage of affordable housing with a place for children to play, and also for them to dream and explore, not only their city, not only their country, but even their world, as we think about a planetarium right here in Queens,” he said.
While not explicitly a campaign stop for Mamdani, who continues to lead in the polls for mayor, he hit on a number of issues he’s championed on the campaign trail.
The event marked the first time Hochul and Mamdani have appeared publicly since the governor endorsed the Democratic nominee in the race a month ago.
Earlier this week, she endorsed his efforts to address childcare costs in the city, short of agreeing on how to pay for it, and did so again on Tuesday in Queens.
“I’ve had conversations with Assemblymember Mamdani about how we can get to universal childcare, I believe we can,” Hochul said. “I believe we have to have the will to do this.”
The policy promise is one of Mamdani’s three main campaign commitments, alongside fast and free city bus service and freezing rent for rent-stabalized tenants.