By Katie Vasquez
Citi Field in Flushing, Queens is the home of the New York Mets baseball team, but there’s a plan to replace 50 acres of parking lots with public park space as well as a Hard Rock hotel, restaurants, bars, a food hall and a casino. Some local Catholics are supporting the idea, like Jose Palaguachi.
“If you make it close to here, it is good for me, because I can go to play. Sometimes I have nothing to do,” said Palaguachi, a parishioner at Our Lady of Sorrows Church.
Others, like Aimee Rosato, a parishioner of Immaculate Conception Church in Astoria, can’t back this bet.
“I think it is going to be terrible for our neighborhoods and I think as a Catholic, we have to. We have to make good economic choices and economic structures like casinos are at their base, predatory,” she told Currents News.
Over in Corona, Jose Cedeno who attends Our Lady of Sorrows believes the casino could be a win for all.
“For me, it’s going to be like a step forward for this community. Have a great park to take out the family on the weekends, on our day off and having opportunities for us, for this community to have great jobs,” said Cedeno.
Uber driver Louis Herrera has mixed feelings on the issue.
“For the economy. it’s good, but, it’s going to create… I think it’s going to be a lot of more traffic than we already have,” he said.
But whether they are for or against, these Catholics believe God will make the right call in the end.
“I really have my faith strong on God. I think he wants us to have these opportunities. I think he’s the one always making good things happen to us,” said Cedeno.
“Saint Augustine tells us that hope is seeing something wrong with the world and having the courage to take action, to do something, to fix it,” said Rosato.
In March, the New York City Council approved the entertainment park which includes the casino.
The group behind the project will apply for a casino license later this year, but it faces some challenges from the state legislature.