Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Greenpoint boat club building a "park" in Maspeth

When I first read this, I thought it had come from the Onion, or at least was a piece of satire. The North Brooklyn Boat Club and Newtown Creek Alliance will be "creating a park" at the end of 58th Road in Maspeth, along Newtown Creek in an area that is 100% heavy industry.

Let me take this opportunity to remind you, dear readers, that the boat club has been holding up the distribution of $7M in environmental funding for the past few years, some of which could have been used to get the ball rolling on the St. Saviour's ULURP. Their unwillingness to shit or get off the pot (along with the assistance of City Parks Foundation) led to Maspeth losing the opportunity to have a new park. However, Maspeth residents can take comfort in the fact that this phony environmental group is building itself a "destination public space" (aka kayak landing) on the Queens side of the Creek.

Oh, and one of the boathouse regulars got a $20,000 grant to paint a mural there... Yes, $20,000. For a mural. In industrial Maspeth. On Newtown Creek.

I wonder when the outreach portion of this project is going to happen considering that no one I have spoken with in Maspeth knows anything about this or asked for this project.

11 comments:

J said...

paddling in sewage,sunning in toxicity
amazing what hipsters are willing to put up with and make adjustments for.

no surprise,since they have no problem paying exorbitant rents to live here.

this is going to blow up in their sphincter faces.

Anonymous said...

I spent my formative years chilling and drinking at this spot. I don't want it to change :(

Anonymous said...

Ah, well, the way things happen with Newtown Creek Alliance is that good Democrat Kate Zidar decides she wants something and then the pols throw money at her. Why a mural costs $20,000 is a good question, however. And where the hell would they put it? On the sanitation silo?

Anonymous said...

Why would you expect them to engage the community about this? They kept everything about the change in location of the boathouse hidden from their own members!

Anonymous said...

This is a sad joke. The creek runs for 3.5 miles and contains untold amounts of contaminated sludge. The contaminants in all likelihood have seeped deep into the bed and will never be clean.

Even today companies are dumping raw chemicals and waste here plus sewerage runs into the creek every time it rains.

These little boys and their toy boats are trying to make us invest in their personal pipe dreams of a clean creek.

Inevitably this group will expect the taxpayers to fund their foolishness. I'd prefer my taxes to be spent on real capital projects.

I'm surprised that Dizzy Lizzy isn't holding a media event to promote this nightmare.

Queens Crapper said...

Our tax dollars are already paying for their boathouse and their "programming"!

Anonymous said...

crapadocious:

I get that but if we let their foot get any further in the door they will become another Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council sucking tens of millions of dollars from our pockets and paying their "executive staff" hundreds of thousands in salary and placing political no shows on the advisory committees not to mention a dumping ground for friends of the politicians who ushered in the millions.

We've all seen this garbage happen before.

Anonymous said...

It's so easy to tear down the positive work that other people are doing. Nice job Crappy!

Queens Crapper said...

What positive work? And why does it cost so much?

Anonymous said...

If any Queens people think this for them, they should think again. The boat club is staking out new territory. Next thing you know, there will be an Ed shed there.

Anonymous said...

get that but if we let their foot get any further in the door they It will become another Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council sucking tens of millions of dollars from our pockets and paying their "executive staff" hundreds of thousands in salary and placing political no shows on the advisory committees not to mention a dumping ground for friends of the politicians who ushered in the millions....

Sounds like Kaufman Studios, Noguchi, MOMI, PS1, in short, the tiny number of cultural institutions that get the lions share of funding sucking the oxygen out of the room for all else. They are big enough to get their own fund raisers.

BTW, notice the Kaufman opening a few weeks ago. When the studio opened in the 80s Gloria Swanson and others showed up for a black tie affair. Now they have the kids from Sinatra High and a gaggle of politicians. So much for tourism and culture in Queens.