Assurances that lost parking spaces will be offset by spaces in a garage beneath the new building have done little to temper existing tenants' misgivings.
Some neighborhood grievances have been predictable: complaints of lost parking and reckless riding, often from those who opposed cycling's expansion in the city long before bike share.
The department has estimated that more than 60percentt of the city's bus stops are too close together, resulting in slow travel times and lost parking.
The goal, he said, is to install bicycle racks in the areas drawing the most complaints, to make up for the lost parking.
(I cannot mourn for lost parking lots. I grew up on the Upper West Side, where wandering for hours in search of a parking space was a way of life).
Paul Bales, who exercises in the new parks, said he used to hear people carping about their lost parks at every turn, on trains and buses and in convenience stores.
More recently, some residents have condemned the interruptions wrought by filming for the HBO series "Boardwalk Empire," complaining of noise, lost parking spaces, and a preponderance of porta-potties.
Flushing Commons is to include 235,000 square feet of small-scale retail, 185,000 square feet of office space, about 600 condos, a 62,000-square-foot Y.M.C.A., a one-and-a-half-acre park and, to make up for the lost parking lot, 1,600 underground parking spaces.
By renting land to caterers and hospitality tents -- part of the vast army of camp followers that now swarms around any major golf event -- the tribe hoped to make up a good bit of the lost parking revenue.
The discovery of a bag of gold coins by a ranch pole-digger last century reaffirmed the old legend of a lost Parker treasure yet to be found.
