You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Greenpoint’ tag.
Bushwick Inlet. photo: Mitch Waxman
Back in 2005, the city promised Williamsburg and Greenpoint 33-acres of waterfront parks; a 28-acres park at Bushwick Inlet and green spaces at both Barge Park and Commercial Street.
These green spaces were promised to the community as compensation for approving a very controversial rezoning of 200 blocks of industrial property. A mile-long esplanade along the East River, several new parks and hundreds of units of affordable housing were promised to Williamsburg and Greenpoint.
Buskwick Inlet Park Soccer Field.
photo: Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park
7 years later, the only thing resembling a park that has materialized is a single soccer field at Bushwick inlet. On the other hand, all one has to do is look around and you can see how many high-rise condos have filled the sky thanks to the zoning changes.
From The Brooklyn Paper: Councilman Steve Levin (D–Greenpoint) accused the Bloomberg administration of favoring projects that could make the city money, such as the McCarren Park Pool set to open this month, while putting waterfront parkland on the back burner.
“I’ve noticed that when something is a priority of this administration, it gets done,” said Levin. “It’s a question of priorities and these parks are not priorities.”
City officials pointed to other projects, like the renovation of the McCarren Park pool, as proof of their commitment – but these projects have no relationship to the zoning deal. They have even re-routed monies from the promised waterfront parks to other projects, including a $24.5 million department headquarters building near the Bushwick Inlet soccer field.
McCarren Park Pool. rendering: NYC Parks
From the Wall Street Journal: The city initially budgeted $14 million for costs associated with that park, but $13 million of that has since been redirected, city officials said.
Now, the City says they have no specific plans in place to keep their promises to the community. Representatives from the Bloomberg administration and NYC Parks Department blame budget-cuts for having stalled the park projects.
From DNAinfo: Bloomberg administration officials admitted Thursday they had no concrete plan to keep the promise. “We remain committed to the project,” mayoral adviser Carolee Fink told the City Council Thursday. But she would only say they were “working on” delivering the promised land.
Waterfront property at 65 Commercial street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. photo: LindaRosier, New York Daily News
Thing is, since there is no law to ensure that the promises of one administration carries over to the next, the assurances of the current administrations officials are meaningless.
From The Brooklyn Paper: [City Council Representative Steve] Levin doubts the city will follow through on its new promises.
“This is about credibility, doing what you say you’re going to do,” said Levin. “You have no concrete plan. When you want to do something, you have a plan.”
by Mai Armstrong for Working Harbor Committee
Last Friday May 4th 2012, the Working Harbor Committee and the Newtown Creek Alliance hosted a group of Elected Officials from the Newtown Creek Watershed, on a boat tour of Newtown Creek. The trip was made possible by a grant from the NYCEF fund of the Hudson River Foundation.
Heading up the East River towards Newtown Creek.
credit: Mai Armstrong
We set sail from pier 17 on a thundery afternoon with City Official and Agency Representative guests from both the Brooklyn and Queens sides to ply the polluted waterway.
The 2-hour cruise gave the Electeds an opportunity to survey specific sites up-close. Working Harbor and the Newtown Creek Alliance covered topics from maritime to remediation – discussing the role of the Creek as a mass employer and it’s potential for maritime transport alternatives to reduce trucking activity on our streets; to continuing sewage overflow issues, bio-remediation and the current oil spills seeping from both sides of the Creek.
Crystal Cutler tug transporting the Kimberly Poling barge.
credit: Mai Armstrong
After days of steady rain, the Newtown Creek was littered with “floatables” – stray bits of lumber and construction materials, cast off plastic bottles and other assorted trash, bobbing among slicks of undetermined composition suspended in the water.
HabitatMap: CSO NC-015 discharges 344.4M gallons per year into English Kills. credit: Mai Armstrong
But, we also saw wildlife. Cormorants, egrets, herons and many other sea birds nesting along the crumbling bulkheads and fishing the Creeks murky waters. Peach apple and cherry trees dot the shoreline, crabs and fish fry forage in the shallows for food. A stark contrast of ‘natural habitat’ against the polluted landscape.
Maspeth Creek cormorants. credit: Mitch Waxman
The afternoon brightened up as our vessel headed back to South Street Seaport, having seen firsthand the shared issues that plague the districts of the Newtown Creek watershed, as well as its rich and vibrant potential that we hold in our collective hands.
From Newtown Pentacle: Efforts such as this, the aim of which was to create a common sense of purpose and to identify issues regarding the Creek for both the Queens and Brooklyn political establishments. Ridgewood and Bushwick, Maspeth and Greenpoint, Williamsburg and Long Island City- all parts of the Newtown Creek watershed have more in common with each other than they do with neighboring districts in either borough. They are blessed with one of the finest industrial waterfronts in the world, but cursed by its past. What the Newtown Creek will look like in fifty years time is beginning to be discussed, and it was time for this “congress of the creek” to be convened.
VIPs survey Newtown Creek. credit: Mitch Waxman
Our heartfelt thanks to the NYCEF Fund of the Hudson River Foundation and the collaborative efforts of the Working Harbor Committee and the Newtown Creek Alliance, and to our esteemed Elected guests for making this tour possible.
by Mai Armstrong for Working Harbor Committee
