From the Queens Chronicle:After years of bureaucratic back and forth, a single city agency has been named responsible for fixing the seawall in Queensbridge Park, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Queens and Manhattan) said Tuesday.
During a meeting with city officials, it was decided that the Parks Department would be taking the lead on mending the collapsing promenade, which has been rendered unusable to residents for nearly a decade.
According to Maloney, Parks Department Commissioner Adrian Benepe said his agency was working on removing lead paint which had fallen into the park from the Queensboro Bridge. After that project is completed, he will begin to repair the seawall, which continues to collapse into the East River.
Meanwhile, Maloney said she is in discussions with the state Department of Environmental Conservation to get permission for the city Department of Transportation to fund a portion of the estimated $12 million repair as part of environmental work required by the DEC after DOT construction on other parts of the waterfront was completed.
Since 2003, politicians and city agencies have been talking about repairing the wall — finding funding, making plans and even contacting the Army Corps of Engineers. However, like the crumbling seawall itself, these plans sank into a river of bureaucracy, leaving Queensbridge residents with a 200-foot-long gaping hole where an esplanade once was.
3 comments:
Spend no money on this at all. Only Queensbridge residents can get to the waterfront anyway - no one else outside of those folks will ever make out alive anyway.
I suggest give each resident family a voucher to rent anywhere elsewhere up to a voucher's value of $800-1500 depending on the family size of course and sell this sprawling Queensbridge property to multiple big developers whom will be required to bid for and open up the waterfront to the public and maintain it in exchange for building tax paying buildings waterfront.
I love Queensbridge Park but the bulkhead (or retaining wall -- it's not a seawall) needn't be repaired. An existing plan to carve a cove or coves would be more beautiful, cheaper, more sustainable, and safer.
I grew up apart of this community. The park, the walkway by the river that in currently collapsing has given me and my family and many other families great memories. It should be repaired. Just because it's a housing projects doesn't mean we don't deserve nice things. Whomever anonymous is, people do make it out alive. I'm proof of that and I visit my community every week to help better it. If they were to sell it to the "big wigs" we'd fight for our community. My grandmother has had her apartment since 1939. She can remember when Vernon blvd and the park was a swamp. Your statement is out of sheer ignorance. The next generation deserves to enjoy the beauty that is queens bridge park. Don't speak on an issue affecting a community if your not a member. Your 2 cents isn't worth the 1 cent voucher you paid for it.
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