Hawtree Creek vomits up another boat

 

 

 Queens Chronicle

The fourth of five derelict boats to be removed from the Jamaica Bay area has been drained and floated up closer to the surface, making it almost ready to be dismantled.

For the first time in years, the Hawtree Basin vessel, which has been a real stick in the mud for residents, is upright and on the move instead of lodged on its side, as seen at right while it was being drained.

“We are happy to report that the contractors are hard at work removing the Hawtree Basin vessel, and hope to have it removed within the next week,” said National Park Service spokesperson Dan Kastanis last week.

As of Wednesday, divers were pulling the boat towards the 99th Street side of the canal for the crew to bring equipment and dismantle it. They should have it there by Thursday but are working according to the tide.

The project to remove the five boats started in December but was delayed due to the pandemic.

According to Google Maps, the Hawtree boat, estimated at over 50 feet, has been abandoned for approximately eight years.

After going in to remove the large Hawtree Basin vessel with a crane, the contractor, Custom Marine, discovered that the boat was impaled by a large steel piling.

That allowed water and debris to fill the vessel, which also had mattresses left behind from when it was a functioning passenger boat.

According to the Custom Marine, which is based out of Westchester, the craft weighs 10,000 pounds per 10 feet, making its mass close to 60,000 pounds.

Divers told Roger Gendron, president of the New Hamilton Beach Civic Association, that the rudder was broken off and the engine had rotted out, allowing even more water and debris to get inside. Gendron has been posting photos and updates on the civic’s Facebook page.

 

The chronic flooding of Hamilton Beach

Great photo essay at Curbed:

If you’d like to get a good picture of New York City’s struggle against sea level rise, head to Hamilton Beach and stand in the middle of the road.

Every month during the highest tides, the streets of this small Queens community are flooded by the waters of Jamaica Bay. At first, as the saltwater starts to trickle in from Hawtree Creek, the small puddles forming around curbs and storm drains don’t appear to be so bad. But as the tide continues to rise, the roads are quickly submerged.

Soon, tiny fish begin to swim across the concrete, and the water is above your ankles. Then swans start to paddle into empty lots, and the water has reached your calves. Suddenly, the flooding is knee high, and the nearest dry land is much too far away. It is a deeply disconcerting feeling, to be standing in seawater in the middle of a neighborhood.

Yet for those living in Hamilton Beach, and in many other neighborhoods around the city, street floods like this are a regular, everyday occurrence. “This is nothing,” says Ginny Dunker, looking out from her front door at a recent six-and-a-half-foot high tide that had flooded midway up her block. “Come back on a rainy day, and then you will see something.”

Hamilton Beach is just one of several New York City communities that are regularly flooded by high tides. Many of these neighborhoods are clustered around Jamaica Bay, including nearby Broad Channel and Howard Beach, and in each of these areas, saltwater has come up into the streets every month for decades. In recent years, however, residents have reported a dramatic increase in the frequency and volume of these floods.

Hamilton Beach, Broad Channel rezoned

From the Queens Chronicle:

The City Council on June 21 unanimously approved a rezoning of Hamilton Beach and Broad Channel, which permits the construction of single-family homes on most lots in the coastal neighborhoods.

The initiatives were pushed through by Councilman Eric Ulrich (R-Ozone Park), who urged the City Planning Commission to approve the plans at its June 7 meeting — even though the panel had more time to review them.

The rezonings will take effect once signed by the City Clerk — which could happen in the coming days.

Under the rezoning, future residential developments in Hamilton Beach and Broad Channel will be limited to one-family houses, with the possibility of two-family homes only on lots wider than 40 feet in the former area.

In Broad Channel, new developments would be single-family only and the construction of community facilities with sleeping accommodations would be prohibited.

The new rules would also prohibit the construction of semidetached multifamily housing in both communities.

Larger homes are often less storm-resilient and out of character in the low-lying, shoreline neighborhoods.

Resiliency is part of new rezonings

From the Queens Chronicle:

The Uniform Land Use Review Procedure has kicked off for a proposed rezoning of Broad Channel and Hamilton Beach, which if passed would only allow for the construction of smaller developments in the low-lying, coastal communities. The Department of City Planning started the process on Feb. 21.

Under the proposed zoning, future residential developments in the communities mostly would be limited to one-family houses, with the possibility of two-family homes only on lots wider than 40 feet in Hamilton Beach. It would also prohibit the construction of semidetached multi-family housing as well as community facilities with sleeping accommodations.

“Our neighborhood is made up of mostly single-family bungalows, some built a hundred years ago, and right next to them are these homes which are completely out of place for the neighborhood,” New Hamilton Beach Civic Association President Roger Gendron said. “With limited access in and out of Hamilton Beach, to continue to allow the overbuilding in our area is unacceptable.”

In Broad Channel, new developments would be single-family only and the construction of community facilities with sleeping accommodations would be prohibited.

Community Boards 10 and 14, which represent Hamilton Beach and Broad Channel, respectively, must hold a public hearing and submit a recommendation on the proposals within 60 days of Feb. 21.

Thirty days after receiving the boards’ recommendations, Borough President Melinda Katz must give her opinion and the city Planning Commission must approve or disapprove them within 60 days after that — the Council must vote on them 50 days later.

Exploring Hawtree Creek

Another great photo essay by Nathan Kensinger on Curbed:

Down at the edge of Jamaica Bay, beneath the subway tracks and next to the airport, flows one of the most-seen but least-known creeks in New York City. It meanders past 100-year-old boat clubs and bungalows, travels underneath the AirTrain and the A train, and is the main reason that most of the nearby communities exist.

But to millions of visitors who look out over its waters while on their way to JFK, it has no name. And for many of the residents who live along its shoreline, its path remains a mystery, though its waters flood their streets during nearly every full moon.

This is Hawtree Creek, which passes through a pocket of New York City that feels like it belongs to a different century. Families living near this waterway still take "the boardwalk into town" like their grandparents once did, still keep a boat or two in the dock out back, and still navigate gravel roads through marshlands to get to their homes, which are built on pilings out over the water.

Remembering Ramblersville

Curbed has a fascinating piece on Ramblersville, a forgotten section of Hamilton Beach.

Flooding will get worse before it gets better

From The Forum:

The low-lying south Queens communities of Old Howard Beach, Hamilton Beach, and Broad Channel are vulnerable to tidal flooding today, and the conditions are only expected to worsen with projected sea level rise, according to the Department of City Planning, which presented current planning initiatives and priorities for Queens on Monday at a joint meeting of the Borough Board and Cabinet at Borough Hall.

However, particularly in Old Howard, DCP has indicated that it is possible to maintain a strong neighborhood “by supporting resilient retrofits and through investments in street-end infrastructure upgrades.”

Hamilton Beach and Broad Channel are far more challenging, DCP noted. A lack of infrastructure solutions presents obstacles to mitigating the impacts of sea level rise.

The unique built environment of Hamilton Beach and Broad Channel – narrow lots, and narrow, low-lying streets – pose challenges for resilient retrofitting and reconstruction. Existing R2, R3-1, and R3-2 Zoning Districts do not account for narrow lot frontage in the residential areas of these communities, DCP noted. Additionally, new, higher flood elevations present physical and economic challenges to the two commercial corridors: Cross Bay Boulevard and Coleman Square.

However, City Planning pointed out that there are opportunities to identify changes to zoning, both in residential areas and business corridors; to maintain neighborhood character, facilitate customer access to businesses, and enable resilient retrofits and building.

More houses in flood zone

From the Queens Chronicle:

Community Board 10 unanimously gave conditional approval to a developer looking to build a series of homes on a vacant lot in Hamilton Beach, with only one of the members abstaining from the vote.

The group of six houses would be listed as 102-04 to 102-24 Dunton Court and would all be semidetached structures on a block that only has one existing home.

John Calcagnile, the board’s Land Use Committee chairman, said the conditions of the approval hinge on the owner addressing drainage and runoff problems on the lot, as well as seeing if the block closer to the existing house can be widened. An architect representing the owner, listed on city documents as Edward Sze, said at the hearing the block near the proposed developments will be widened from 19 feet to 30, which would allow emergency vehicles to drive around the homes with no difficulty. Sze is under no legal obligation to widen the street near the house there now.

The proposed semidetached homes may face another obstacle, as some Hamilton Beach residents earlier this year voted to support a rezoning initiative that would only allow for detached one- or two-family homes to be built in the neighborhood and prohibit the ones proposed by Sze.

The Uniform Land Use Review Procedure for the rezoning has not yet kicked off. Should Sze want to avoid running into problems with it, he would have to have the foundations in place before any rezoning passes the Council.

So we're continuing to overdevelop in the flood plain? Great work.

Hamilton Beach votes to downzone

From the Queens Chronicle:

Hamilton Beach residents last Wednesday overwhelmingly voted in favor of a zoning proposal that would only allow for detached one- or two-family homes to be built in the neighborhood and prohibit the future construction of multifamily semi-detached buildings — houses that many said don’t fit in with the character of the area.

“We’ve heard that the semi-detached homes are not desirable in this neighborhood,” Melissa Herlitz, a planner with the city Department of City Planning, said at a community meeting hosted by the New Hamilton Beach Civic Association.

With only a handful dissenting, the vote was cast by about 30 people — a fact that some said should have stopped it from taking place until more people could have their say.

Residents who attended the meeting were given three choices by planning officials: Leave the zoning as it is, allow only one-family homes to be built and the one they approved. The vast majority of
Hamilton Beach residents did not want to go for the first option, citing semi-detached houses in the neighborhood that are “out of character” and bring more cars onto a block than there are parking spots.

The second option wasn’t desirable because it would stop anyone with a large enough lot from building a two-family structure — minimum lot size for new construction will be determined at a later date.

Southern Queens is very buggy this year

From CBS News:

Beach areas in Queens hit hard by Superstorm Sandy and still recovering are dealing with a new issue this summer.

As CBS2’s Meg Baker reported, some residents are scratching their heads over a lack of action against what they call a pest explosion.

“Right around sunset they come out and overwhelm you,” Hamilton Beach resident, Christopher Jones said.

“The mosquito problem down here is insane,” Michael Hussey added.

Residents said the only way to combat mosquitoes is to stay inside. Bug spray and citronella candles don’t work.

“Candles don’t do anything,” Jones said.

Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder walked the neighborhood on Bayview and Broadway with CBS2’s Baker and explained that conditions were ripe for breeding.

“In southern Queens we are surrounded by Jamaica Bay, Sandy damage still not repaired, we are a target for mosquito breeding and West Nile,” he said.

Goldfeder is pushing the Health Department to spray the area of Hamilton Beach, Howard Beach, and Lindenwood.

Water main break causes problem in Hamilton Beach

Joe Thompson

From the Queens Courier:

A continuous stream of water has been flowing onto one Hamilton Beach street for over six days due to a water main break, causing flooding along the thoroughfare that turns into sheets of ice when temperatures dip below freezing.

“It’s been six days,” said Roger Gendron, president of the Hamilton Beach Civic Association. “I don’t understand why it is taking so long to fix. In all honesty I just feel like this is the way the city treats Hamilton Beach.”

On Feb. 23, water from the break, which is located directly in the middle of the First Street in Hamilton Beach, was gushing from cracks in the asphalt down toward 104th Street and into a catch basin. But now with temperatures set to plunge well below freezing again Monday night, Gendron is concerned about potentially hazardous conditions if the city doesn’t fix the problem.

The break was first noticed on Feb. 17 by Joe Thompson of the Howard Beach Civilian Observation Patrol during his nightly tour. He observed the water coming out of the ground and turning into ice due to the cold weather that night. He immediately filed a 311 report but the only response from the city, up to this point, was a sanitation truck dispatched on Feb. 18 to salt the road in order to break up some of the ice.

Street not repaved since 1997

From the Queens Chronicle:

Residents of Hamilton Beach are taking their fight to have a street in the community repaired to the highest level of City Hall.

Roger Gendron, president of the New Hamilton Beach Civic Association, has started a petition asking Mayor de Blasio to direct the Department of Transportation to repave 104th Street, which has been neglected for years.

“We just want to get it leveled,” Gendron said. “That road is our only way in and out of Hamilton Beach.”

The corridor, which runs north and south, was ripped up along with other Hamilton Beach streets in 1997 as part of a city project to place sewer pipelines throughout the area, Gendron said.

Following the completion of the construction later that year, Gendron said, many of the roads were repaired, repaved and maintained by the city, with the exception of 104th Street.

“It hasn’t been touched,” he said.

The condition of the road has been made worse by a construction boon in the area.

Gendron said about six houses have been erected on 104th Street since 2008, which has only exacerbated the problem.

Thankful for new boardwalk

From the Forum:

The final steps of the new Hamilton Beach boardwalk are being constructed and it could be opening up soon.

The “boardwalk,” which will now be a cement path connecting Hamilton Beach to Old Howard Beach, has been fully paved and railings have been installed, according to Councilman Eric Ulrich’s office, which is overseeing the plans.

The main portion of the project has been done by the NYC Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS). The last remaining portion of it, which is to add the ramp connecting the train station to the boardwalk, has to be done in partnership with the MTA since they own that portion of the land.

Work started on the path in May and was scheduled to finish by the end of September, but building the ramp has prolonged this process.

Help sought to finish anti-graffiti project

From the Queens Courier:

Graffiti has been a problem in Hamilton Beach for decades, creating eyesores all around the neighborhood.

And the bridge that connects Hamilton Beach to Old Howard Beach over Hawtree Creek, known to residents as the “blue bridge,” is one of the most notorious spots for defacement.

But some residents, who are fed up with the look it gives the neighborhood, took clean-up matters into their own hands.

“One day, while hanging on my boat with some friends, we all started talking [about] how the bridge made the neighborhood look degrading,” said Laura Weiser, a resident of Hamilton Beach for 12 years. “So, I decided to do something about it.”

And she did.

As Weiser was starting to paint the southern portion, on her second day of painting, she slipped, fell and tore tendons and ligaments in her left wrist. Because of this injury, she could not finish painting the side and has left it a quarter of the way done.

She is now hoping that some residents will follow her good deed and help finish painting the concrete as she will not be able to do so for another six weeks.

The parrots of Queens

From the NY Times:

Queens is not the only place the tropical green birds have become firmly entrenched. Fifty years after exotic bird importers began carting them here from their native South America, the parrots have nestled into other neighborhoods in the city and beyond.

The best guess on their citywide population is around 550, though biologists say bird counts often capture just a tenth of their true totals. The parrots have set up colonies in at least 10 states, including Florida, Texas, Illinois and Oregon. They dappled European skies, breeding in England and Spain.

Today in Brooklyn, their pile-of-twig nests are built in the iron gates of Green-Wood Cemetery. They have made homes in Upper Manhattan and amid the trees in Riverside Park. They are in Whitestone and Flushing, Queens. They have built nests in Edgewater, N.J., in the slopes along River Road, an undulating bicycle path in the shadow of the George Washington Bridge, said Corey Finger, of Forest Hills, Queens, a co-owner of the birding blog 10,000 Birds.

But Queens has extended the birds perhaps the biggest welcome.

State Senator Joseph P. Addabbo Jr., who can see one of their nests from the windows of his district office in Howard Beach, is pushing two bills he introduced in 2010 to protect the parrots (also known as parakeets), though neither has passed. One would put them in a protected category. The other would require their nests be handled with care if they have to be moved. The senator says seeing the “green, rather large, rather unique-sounding parakeet” among pigeons fascinates New Yorkers.

Resorts World fixing up playground

From The Forum:

Roger Gendron of the New Hamilton Beach Civic Association could barely contain his excitement when announcing the news at last Thursday’s summer meeting. After years of waiting, his community was finally going to see change at its old, decrepit playground by September and nearby Resorts World agreed to pick up the tab.

"This is really going to go a long way to help this community,” he said. “It’s not just damage from [Hurricane] Sandy. It’s the graffiti that’s out there, too. It’s an eyesore.”

Since Superstorm Sandy swept through the northeast in 2012, the playground at the end of Hamilton Beach has sat in disrepair and disarray. Chipped paint, graffiti, and overturned flooring were only the beginning of the laundry list of things desperately waiting for a fresh start.

And despite the community’s best efforts to get its hands on funding to fix the area, bureaucratic battles between the National Parks Service and city agencies kept the Hamilton Beach playground renovations in flux.

But that all changed when Michelle Stoddart, public relations director for Resorts World Casino, delivered a mockup of the new $40,000 playground to Hamilton Beach residents at last week’s civic meeting showcasing fresh fire engine red slides and a blue and yellow exterior.

“A lot of our staff live in this community and are from this community. We thought it would be a good idea to help,” she said. “This is something we are very excited to get involved with and look forward to seeing it finished.”

Stoddart said Resorts World would be teaming up with Pavers and Road Builders Local 1010 as well as the National Parks Service to reconstruct the playground. The entire deal, she said, was also made possible because of borough elected officials helping grease the wheels.

Sandy-damaged Hamilton Beach walkway repaired

From the Queens Courier:

The first 500 feet of the Hamilton Beach “boardwalk” has been built.

The repair work on the Hamilton Beach walkway connecting the town to the Coleman Square train station is making strides.

The first 500 feet of the now-concrete walkway has been built and officials hope the nearly 2,000-foot path will be fully constructed by the end of September, said Sal Simonetti, chief of staff for Councilman Eric Ulrich, at the Hamilton Beach Civic Association meeting on Aug. 14.

The concrete walkway is expected to be a bit wider than the original wooden boardwalk and will have handrails and lighting, according to Roger Gendron, president of the Hamilton Beach Civic Association.

Work began on May 17, nearly two and a half years after the bridge was rendered too dangerous to use because of damage from Superstorm Sandy.

Hamilton Beach street is a holy mess

From the Queens Courier:

On 104th Street, a main artery for cars, buses and pedestrian traffic coming in and out of the neighborhood, a new problem developed over just a few days.

Residents trace the problem to 10 years ago when new homes were built in one section and the street was gouged in several places for sewer piping. Aside from the newly formed hole in the road, Hamilton Beach’s main road is pocked with numerous holes that span over 200 feet.

The daily task of driving along 104th Street is fraught with indentations of all kinds that often force drivers to drive on the wrong side of the road to save their axles the abuse. The road also has a bus stop for the Q11 but there is no sidewalk for people to wait on, making them another obstacle that drivers have to look out for.

Residents ultimately want the Department of Transportation (DOT) to put in a completely new roadbed that would elevate the road, preventing pools of water from collecting in the holes during rainstorms. They also want a waiting area for people using the bus.

DOT Spokesman Nicholas Mosquera said that the department doesn’t have the resources to make these long-term changes.

Chilly nights in Hamilton Beach

From the Daily News:

Many southern Queens homeowners whose belongings and houses were destroyed by the wrath of Superstorm Sandy are still living without heat.

Some residents of Hamilton Beach, a community of one- and two-story homes bordering Howard Beach and JFK Airport, said Wednesday that water gets into their National Grid gas lines every few days — knocking out the service they need for heat, hot water and cooking.

“We’re very frustrated,” said New Hamilton Beach Civic Association President Roger Gendron. “We just feel that after all of these months, a solution should have been reached by now.”

Gary Robertson, 36, said that since the storm he often wakes up in the middle of night “freezing.”

“Every two or three days, I have water in my gas line and my heat kicks off,” said Robertson, whose home flooded with about five feet of water during Sandy. “I’ve had days where my house was 35 degrees.”

He said he calls National Grid several times a week, is on hold for 15 to 20 minutes and then someone is sent to his home to confirm there is a problem.

But it can take days before the utility sends a truck out to pump bottled gas flush into his line to flush the water out of it, he said.

“It’s disgusting,” he said. “I’ve had so many hardships from this storm ... and to have to deal with this, as well as everything else, is extremely frustrating.”

Fire dept's equipment destroyed by storm

From NY1:

With their equipment still damp from the flood waters, the head of the West Hamilton Beach Volunteer Fire Department said he doesn't know when they will be able to replace the fire trucks and ambulances they lost in the flood. Three fire engines and two ambulances were destroyed.

The volunteers say the water swept through the firehouse in a matter of minutes. It happened as a crew was helping residents.

The West Hamilton Beach Volunteer Fire Department has been around for more than a century and it's been a lifeline for this tiny beach community.

This was the place where many went for food and clothes after the power went out, but now that the lights are back on, they are working on getting new equipment.

A backup ambulance and the rig they received from the Hooversville Volunteer Fire Department this week is just about all they have.