three business improvement districts<\/a> that bring in a combined assessment of almost $10 million.<\/p>\nThat funding power allows the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership to spend upwards of $150,000 on holiday decorations, Greenfield said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While other business improvement districts typically rent the same static holiday lights for a lesser cost year after year, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership brought new responsive LED, sound-activated skylines and banners this year for Fulton Mall, Court Street and Abolitionist Place from Limbic Media, a Canadian company.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Smaller business improvement districts don\u2019t let a lack of spending power stop them from putting on a good show.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Flatbush-Nostrand Junction BID has an assessment of $350,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not like the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership or Bryant Park Partnership, you know?\u201d said Mbonu. \u201cThey\u2019re surrounded by a bunch of class A-type buildings. So our assessment will never be like theirs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Class A buildings are the highest-quality commercial buildings available on the market. They are typically newly constructed or highly renovated spaces, such as office towers and luxury mixed-use buildings. This results in business improvement districts receiving higher assessments.<\/p>\n
Every year, the Flatbush-Nostrand Junction BID commissions a new artist to create a theme for a 100% upcycled holiday tree.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe try to work with what we have,\u201d said Mbonu. \u201cWe use art and design as a template to address a lot of the challenges we have here at the BID. And it works because it helps us to include artists that live in the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year\u2019s theme for the holiday tree spotlighted New York City\u2019s homelessness crisis, featuring a couch from a Brooklyn family who lost their apartment. This year\u2019s theme will center on the winter solstice and the Kwanzaa principle of unity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But not every commercial shopping center has a business improvement district to foster unity and maintain winter programming.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After a merchant group on Vanderbilt Avenue ceased operations during the pandemic, a volunteer-run civic group, the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council, stepped in.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s challenging to keep a merchant association active if it doesn\u2019t have a guaranteed funding stream like a BID,\u201d said Gib Veconi, secretary of the Prospect Heights Development Council.<\/p>\n
The council crowdfunded about $6,000 this year to fund holiday skylines on Vanderbilt Avenue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDonations come from residents and businesses on Vanderbilt Avenue. It\u2019s somewhat unusual,\u201d said Veconi. \u201cBut year after year, people come back to fund it. And I think that they do that because they can see the lights go up and think, \u2018Yeah, I helped to do that. I was a part of that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Community groups hire contractors to install the lights. City 1 Maintenance handles the storage, installation, and upkeep of the tree and holiday lighting fixtures for the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. It\u2019s a year-round affair.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe holiday lighting, ironically enough, starts in the spring,\u201d said Joseph Lozito, President of City 1 Maintenance. \u201cIt takes six to seven months of good planning.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Workers start the installation process around 9 p.m. when traffic slows down and complete it in the wee hours of the morning before rush hour.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want to become the topic of discussion by holding up traffic,\u201d said Lozito. \u201cWe want the topic of discussion to be the product that\u2019s up in the air.\u201d<\/p>\n
The best part is seeing the community\u2019s response to all their hard work during the lighting ceremony.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMy guys take pride in what they do,\u201d Lozito said. \u201cJust hearing the crowd\u2019s reactions \u2014 \u2018Wow,\u2019 or \u2018Oh my God, this is beautiful\u2019 \u2014 means a lot to them. They love putting up the lights and the stars. A lot of times, they film it and send it back home to relatives in Honduras or Ecuador. It gives them a sense of accomplishment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s the most wonderful time of the year. Millions of New Yorkers and tourists go to the Rockefeller…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-78457","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}