<img src=”https://queensledger.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/IMG_6960-scaled-e1790614445768-1024×527.jpeg” alt=”” width=”1024″ height=”527″ class=”size-large wp-image-20287″ /> Former Queens Community Board 1 member and State Assemblymember-elect Brian Romero testifies at the September 22 meeting. (Photos: Cole Sinanian)
<strong>BY COLE SINANIAN</strong> | <em>cole@queensledger.com</em>
ASTORIA — At a packed Community Board 1 meeting at Astoria World Manor on Tuesday night, board members voted 30-2 to ask the NYC Parks Department to cancel a <a href=”https://queensledger.com/2026/09/10/pop-the-bubble-activists-tennis-players-organize-to-stop-astoria-park-bubble-enclosure/”>controversial proposal</a> to build private “bubble” enclosures over the majority of Astoria Park’s tennis courts.
The vote capped a <a href=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU9IwUlxMvk”>four-hour-long meeting</a>, during which no fewer than 30 New Yorkers young and old, tennis players and non-tennis players alike, came out against the privatization push in a show of solidarity that united a <a href=”https://www.instagram.com/poptheastoriabubble/”>broad coalition</a> of local clubs and political organizations over their shared desire to keep a beloved space public.
Among them were members of Astoria Trash Club, wearing shirts with the volunteer cleanup group’s logo; Democratic Socialists of America members sporting Queens DSA tote bags; and State Assemblymember-elect and former CB1 member Brian Romero, who spoke against the bubble proposal.
“There is unity in a lot of different groups because we see beyond the scope of what this bubble does,” said Astoria Trash Club founder Paul Langis in an interview after Tuesday’s meeting.
“We don’t want to see people get priced out.”
The proposal would see the City hire a private company to erect and operate inflatable bubbles over 8-10 of Astoria Park’s 14 tennis courts between mid-October and mid-April, which would cost somewhere between $50 and $100 per hour to use. A tennis permit at Astoria Park currently costs $100 for the season.
Not a single person at Tuesday night’s meeting spoke in favor of the bubble proposal, and several pointed out the disparity between the roughly 300-signature petition in favor and the nearly 4,000-signature petition against it. Some brought up affordability concerns, arguing the proposal would exclude working-class people from using the courts. Others worried that relegating free playing time to just a handful of courts would limit after-school programming for local children, while others still cited the previous precedents of the board — which shut down similar bubble proposals in 1992, and again in 2005.
<img src=”https://queensledger.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/IMG_6957-1024×768.jpeg” alt=”” width=”1024″ height=”768″ class=”size-large wp-image-20288″ /> Members of the public await their turn to speak. (Photos: Cole Sinanian)
But it was discussion of mental health, and the importance of free, accessible athletic space to keep locals healthy and happy during life’s lowest lows, that got the most airtime Tuesday.
One woman explained that free access to tennis in her community and the friends she made in the courts’ open-air environment kept her hopeful after her third miscarriage. Another approached the podium with an infant strapped around her, tearing up as she spoke:
“We are 4th and 5th generation Astorians,” she said. “And it’s unconscionable to me that my son could actually have less than me in any capacity.”
Aida Marquetti, who said she grew up playing tennis at Astoria Park, recalled sneaking into the courts with her friends who had permits because she couldn’t afford it.
“I was poor,” she continued. “We should not gatekeep access to only those who can afford it.”
Gloria Ellis, an Astoria resident for 30 years, spoke of the open tennis courts’ public health utility, and how they’d kept her both fit and social into her old age.
“I am 81 and a half years old,” she said, before being interrupted by an audience member. “What’s your secret?” they shouted.
“Tennis!” Ellis replied.
“You ask me why do I look like this? Because that allows me to move,” she said. “It’s the place where you can move, there’s free air. There’s trees. There’s a sense of being out of an open space. You lose that when you have to buy that service.”
As several Astorians pointed out Tuesday, the chronic underfunding of public agencies like NYC Parks, and their subsequent reliance on private capital to fund even basic maintenance is not the only way. Private capital, too, is far from a reliable partner in maintaining public spaces, as recent history suggests. Audits from <a href=”https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/audit-report-on-department-of-parks-and-recreation-oversight-of-capital-improvements-by-concessionaires-2/”>2004</a> and <a href=”https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/audit-report-on-department-of-parks-and-recreation-oversight-of-capital-improvements-by-concessionaires/”>2010</a> show that the agency failed to collect concession fees from private companies operating in NYC Parks, while at tennis bubbles like those at McCarren Park, as well as the <a href=”https://www.amny.com/news/cb8s-last-ditch-effort-de-privatize-ues-queensboro-oval/”>Queensboro Oval</a> on the Upper East Side and elsewhere, the Parks Department failed to enforce contractually obligated capital improvements, while park users allege the private operators let conditions slide.
“The larger issue here is that we still very much have a Parks Department that gets <a href=”https://hellgatenyc.com/nypd-overtime-report/”>less than the overtime budget of the NYPD</a>, which says a lot,” Romero told the Queens Ledger.
The Astoria Park bubble proposal comes amid recent privatization pushes at public parks nearby, perhaps the highest profile of which is the alienation of public land at the site of the future Metropolitan Park Hard Rock Casino at the edge of Flushing Meadows Corona Park, which the State Assembly <a href=”https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/A6781″>approved</a> in May 2025 in a near-unanimous vote, despite <a href=”https://queensledger.com/2026/06/07/we-just-want-our-day-in-court-anti-casino-lawsuit-drags-on-over-venue-fight/”>fierce local opposition</a>. And just on the other side of Newtown Creek, Greenpoint’s Transmitter Park faced its own concessionaire battle, when locals <a href=”https://brooklyndowntownstar.com/lead_story/2026/08/06/gpointers-blast-transmitter-park-proposal/”>swiftly killed a proposal</a> to “activate” a section of the waterfront open space with a commercial marina and a swanky new restaurant.
”I think there’s broad consensus that folks want to think about investment in our public institutions very differently,” Romero added. “They want them to belong in public hands, be taken care of as a public good.”
For Langis, the conversion of once-public spaces to luxury amenities that only the fortunate can afford — even if it’s just a few tennis courts — sets off alarm bells. Unless locals are vigilant, he says, such measures could mark the beginning of more permanent, more transformative changes.
“We kind of foresee what may start as a few bubbles on some of the tennis courts expanding to something larger,” he said.
“Ultimately, that’s what gentrification is at the end of the day. You bring in luxury items for some, and it’s the local residents and the local businesses that suffer at the end of the day…We just want to keep Astoria the beautiful community that it is.”
