Queens electeds hog the spotlight for Newtown Creek revitalization

Queens Post

Elected officials and local leaders held a rally in Long Island City Friday calling on the city and state to repair a badly damaged section of the Newtown Creek.

The rally took place in front of the Dutch Kills Tributary near 29th Street, where large chunks of a retaining wall surrounding the creek have collapsed, causing concrete and debris to spill into the waterway.

The demonstrators say that the damaged bulkhead has polluted the waterway with dumped tires, concrete blocks, and other historic fill. The collapse, campaigners say, has also created dangerous instability in the adjacent roadway – located just three feet away from the unstable shoreline.

They demanded the three governmental agencies — the state Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC), the city Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) which owns the adjacent land — immediately address the deteriorating containment walls.

The campaigners presented renderings of redesign proposals showing how the agencies could create a new shoreline around the Dutch Kills Tributary that adds a public access point to the waterfront. It also incorporates native species and habitat restoration.

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, Councilmember Julie Won, members of the volunteer group the Newtown Creek Alliance and LaGuardia Community College President Kenneth Adams attended the rally. Juan Ardila, who won the Democratic primary for the Assembly District 37 seat in June, also participated in the event along with a number of environmental activists.

“This shoreline is in need of investment if it’s going to reach its full potential,” Richards said.

“It needs to be restored… to be made accessible for everyone to enjoy, helping families in our community thrive for generations to come. We are calling on our agencies to get their act together, now is not a time for bureaucracy, now is the time for the cure.”

 

The history of often overlooked Blissville

From Brick Underground:

Blissville, a slice of Long Island City bordered by Calvary Cemetery, the Long Island Expressway, and Newtown Creek, is a rough-hewn, mostly forgotten outpost of New York City.

Once a bustling industrial hub, most of Blissville today is occupied by warehouses, auto repair shops, and yes, there are still some factories. There is also a light sprinkling of homes and storefronts, and much of the building stock dates back to the 19th century. Calvary Cemetery looms along the length of Greenpoint Avenue, the main drag of the neighborhood. The walls surrounding the cemetery, and some of the nearby streets, are littered with broken bottles and other trash, giving today's Blissville an unloved look. The gated cemetery is the only swath of green in the neighborhood—there are no parks or playgrounds.

In the neighborhood’s odoriferous glory days in the 19th century, its location on the banks of Newtown Creek is what made Blissville a place to know. By the 1850s, the creek’s banks were lined with glue factories, smelting and fat-rendering plants, refineries, foundries, and other heavy industries, connected to the rest of the country by trains that ran through the area. Now, not coincidentally, the creek is among the most polluted bodies of water in the country.

Old Kosciuszko span lowered to water

George the Atheist has more photos on his page.

Kosciuszko Bridge will open this week

From NBC 4:

The first span of the project to replace the aging Kosciuszko Bridge is opening to drivers this week, and News 4's Andrew Siff got an exclusive look at the 800-pound original plaque that will mark the new bridge's opening along with Gov. Cuomo. But drivers shouldn't expect a major change in traffic congestion there for a few years -- here's why.

The bridge will open with a light show Thursday night.

Since everything is covered with cement...

From DNA Info:

The city is building more than 300 rain gardens on streets in western Queens, part of a $7.3 million project to help curb pollution flowing into nearby Newtown Creek, according to the Department of Environmental Protection.

The 321 gardens — also known as bioswales — are being built in Sunnyside, Maspeth and Ridgewood, largely clustered east of the Kosciuszko Bridge and in neighborhoods around the Queens-Midtown Expressway in Queens Community Boards 2 and 5.

Built into the sidewalks, the gardens are designed to collect and absorb rain that would otherwise go into the sewer system, potentially overwhelming the city's wastewater treatment plants and overflowing into local waterways, including Newtown Creek, a notoriously polluted Superfund site.

And why is there so much runoff into the Creek?

Boondoggle streetcar line will require that new bridges be built

From the NY Times:

The Brooklyn-Queens streetcar proposed by Mayor Bill de Blasio could require the construction of two new bridges, one over Newtown Creek and a second over the Gowanus Canal, a top administration official said on Friday.

At a briefing for reporters, the official, Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, and other administration leaders made public new details about the streetcar proposal, with the potential need for the two bridges among the most notable and expensive elements of the planned system, which would run between Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and Astoria, Queens.

While the exact route has not been finalized, Ms. Glen said, planners have determined that the Pulaski Bridge, between Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and Long Island City, Queens, and the bridge that traverses the Gowanus Canal at Hamilton Avenue near Red Hook, Brooklyn, may not be able to accommodate streetcars.

While a developer-driven yuppie connector streetcar is being planned for neighborhoods that already have subway lines running through them, residents of southeastern Queens will still require multiple bus transfers to get to a subway or the LIRR, and no one at City Hall cares.

LIC hipsters just want to be assholes

Dear Crappy,

Today I decided to savor some sunshine and take a walk. I felt enjoying my community's "public"/"park" spaces was in order, so I headed over to the Manhattan Avenue Kayak Launch. The attached photos, which I knew you would find interesting given recent events, were taken at 1:17 pm. Although they pretty much speak for themselves, I will elaborate a bit. The bearded fellow (to the right) was engaged in a conversation with the fellow in the orange shirt (to the left). About what is anyone's idea. At one point there was a fellow to the left of the orange shirted fellow. He appeared to be taking photos of the bearded guy and the orange shirted guy talking. He could have been taking photos of the bulkhead (Queens side, obviously) of the former bridge which once spanned from Manhattan Avenue to Long Island City. Or both. Too difficult to tell.

Cheers!

Your comrade on other side of the creek,

NYS

Parking one's boat on a Superfund site as well as on top of a gas line - not too bright.

State fines Newtown Creek metal dumper

From the Daily News:

The manager of a Brooklyn metal cleaning company pleaded guilty to using a simple, secret maneuver to dump industrial toxic waste into the Newtown Creek.

Manuel Acosta, 58, of Control Electropolishing Corporation, admitted he directed his employees to insert a plug into a bypass line, sending waste and sludge — containing high levels of chromium, copper, lead and nickel — on a path to the estuary that runs between Brooklyn and Queens.

The bypass line is designed to treat the waste water before it is released into the NYC sewer system, prosecutors said in court Wednesday.

Instead, the gunk traveled to the Newtown Creek Water Pollution Control Plant, which does not treat industrial products. The infractions occurred between November 2013 and December 2014.

What a victory!

From the Queens Chronicle:

The Department of Environmental Protection finally gave in to Maspeth residents on Monday after months of calls for the agency to allow the construction of a sports field on a meadow next to a proposed aeration facility along Newtown Creek.

At a hearing of the City Council’s Subcommittee on Landmarks, Public Siting and Maritime Uses on Monday, DEP Associate Commissioner for the Bureau of Public Affairs Eric Landau said the agency is willing to compromise with the Ridgewood-based Blau Weiss Gottschee soccer group over the space.

“DEP is willing to further entertain the idea of entering into a memorandum of understanding with the community organization that will be responsible for building and maintaining the space for athletic purposes,” Landau said.

The soccer club will be responsible for the costs pertaining to the construction and maintenance of the athletic field, according to Landau.

Hmmm...this is a brownfield site that sits next to a superfund site. Sounds like an ideal place for local kids to play! And a not-for-profit will spend its money, which probably will come via a taxpayer funded city council member item, to maintain it.

Realtor pushing for hotel by Newtown Creek

From the Queens Courier:

Today Newtown Creek stands as one of the “nation’s most polluted waterways,” according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as a result of industrial contamination from nearby factories and raw sewage dumping that dates back to the 1800s.

But listed as a Superfund site since 2010 and with an ongoing remedial process, brokers at Greiner-Maltz Investment Properties are marketing a site across from a section of the infamously contaminated body of water that could be in high demand after the grimy, toxic 3.8 mile creek is cleaned up.

The site sits at the edge of Ridgewood near the border of East Williamsburg and Maspeth to the north. It begins where Metropolitan and Onderdonk avenues intersect, and is surrounded by various factories in the neighborhood.

An existing 4,225-square-foot building with the address 46-00 Metropolitan Ave. is on the site, which is being used as an auto junk yard. The property has up to 40,720 square feet of buildable space zoned for manufacturing, but an investor could redevelop it into a hotel with — views of the now-mucky creek — brokers said.

See that off-color section of water? That's poop, folks.

Will Chinese investors go for a residential fantasy on Newtown Creek?

From Curbed:

As with the equally polluted (give or take) Gowanus Canal, it seems like only a matter of time before the banks of Newtown Creek give way to large-scale residential development, and to get things started architectural firms Avoid Obvious Architects and Studio C Architects have designed just such a development for a currently industrial East Williamsburg site, on spec. One of the architects told NY YIMBY, "we hope to find the right investors in China." The plan consists of three glassy towers connected by planted walkways. One of the towers would be condos (naturally), one would be a hotel, and the third would be "dedicated as artist's studio." (The entire thing? Apparently.) The renderings do raise some questions, though, such as: at what point did the barren industrial wasteland of East Williamsburg turn into a lush forest?

Newtown Creek projects still in limbo

City Parks Foundation released an update on the status of the Newtown Creek projects. The North Brooklyn Boat Club is still working on an agreement to be located inside Gina Argento's hotel next to the Pulaski Bridge. They are potentially sitting on $3M, but have not been given a deadline to ink an agreement. I'd like to remind you all that they came in 3rd place in the voting.

Meanwhile, the only Queens project on the list, the Dutch Kills basin park, has been given a deadline of May 2015 to find a new site or their funding gets taken away. I'll also take this opportunity to remind you that this project came in first place in the voting.

But everything going on with regard to these funds is totally above board.

Boat club really knows how to party (and pollute)

From New York Sh*tty:

Last night the Mister and I decided to have dinner in Long Island City. Since the weather was (somewhat) amenable we decided to walk home. As we were crossing the Pulaski we spied signs of activity at the North Brooklyn Boat Club. Intrigued— because, as we all, a great deal of “educational outreach” is conducted at 10:13 on a Tuesday night— we decided to hang around see what gives. Clearly they were wrapping up for the night. And then the Mister saw something interesting. VERY INTERESTING.

This fellow placed an object to his mouth (a kazoo? cigarette?), pulled a drag and proceeded to walk to the floating dock. There he tossed it into the creek. The Mister was flummoxed:

Did you see that? He just tossed a cigarette into the creek?!?

Me: Yes, I saw that. Did you know the North Brooklyn Boat Club was recently awarded Greenpoint Community Environmental Fund money so as to educate bar patrons about how cigarette butts thrown onto the street enter our sewer system and eventually end up in the creek?
____________________________________

Yeah, but considering there could be oil floating on the surface of the water, it brings a whole new level of stupidity to the incident.

KABOOM! Happy 4th!

Grand Street Bridge just can't get fixed

From the Queens Courier:

The plans to replace a ramshackle bridge over a toxic creek won’t be drawn up until 2016, officials said.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) plan for reconstruction of a 100-year-old bridge that connects Brooklyn and Queens won’t enter the planning phase for two more years, according to a DOT spokesman.

The Grand Street Bridge spans the Newtown Creek — a federal Superfund site—and connects Gardner Avenue in Brooklyn and 47th street in Queens.

Built in 1903, the narrow bridge is a nominally two-way road that has required constant maintenance over the years. A reconstruction of the bridge would widen the bridge and also reinforce it to better withstand the weight of modern cars. Locals were skeptical.

“We’ve been through a design phase before. A lot of projects have been stalled for too long. And this project has been stalled for too long,” said Gary Giordano, district manager in Community Board 5, expressing skepticism about the department’s plans for reconstruction. He noted that the bridge on the Queens side is in Maspeth where there are many industrial manufacturing businesses.

And with the businesses comes a high volume of truck traffic that use the bridge everyday.

The DOT promised to maintain the bridge while the agency plans to plan.

Connecting the dots

This was forwarded by a reader:

"Happy Spring!

You may already be aware of Green Shores NYC’s groundbreaking efforts to ensure a greener, cleaner, more accessible and connected East River Waterfront in Queens.

In keeping with our tradition of being the voice of the community with regard to our waterfront and our goal of having a greener, cleaner, connected and united waterfront, we are excited to announce our new initiative called BRIDGING THE CREEK (BTC).

For BTC we will be working closely with the Newtown Creek Alliance and with support from the Hudson River Foundation. BTC will focus on bringing Queens residents into closer contact with the Newtown Creek and its environs through tours, workshops and a forum that will gather concerns and brainstorm solutions for environmental improvements and public access. A key goal of BRIDGING THE CREEK is to open up new opportunities for dialogue, collaboration and access. A celebratory event is envisioned later this year that will further encourage connections between neighborhoods on both sides of the Creek.

In the coming weeks, we will be reaching out to you to provide more detailed information.

Thanks so much for your time and we look forward to working with you on The Creek!"

Then they received an invite to take a survey, a screenshot of which is below:

You will notice the words "trailblazing advocacy work" used to describe Newtown Creek Alliance. Kind of over-the-top language, don't you think? Let's connect the dots:

1) City Parks Foundation is in charge of administering Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant funds.

2) GreenShores is a program of City Parks Foundation, which is the Parks Department's fundraising arm.

3) According to the above e-mail, GreenShores is a "partner" of Newtown Creek Alliance.

4) Newtown Creek Alliance supports the North Brooklyn Boat Club, mainly because the boards of both organizations contain the same people.

5) The boat club went from priority #3 to priority #1 after City Parks Foundation released the list.

Numerous other conflicts-of-interest here were explained in a previous post. There's a cabal that has a lock on a majority of the funding that has anything to do with the Creek.

It's kind of funny but sad how easily the dots can be connected, yet Attorney General Schneiderman is blind to what's gone on. Is this intentional, sir? Is it time to BRING IN THE FEDS?

Because $7M for a boat club just isn't enough...

UPDATE: I was just reminded that the boathouse was the #3 vote-getter during the process. The Dutch Kills park was actually #1. So how did the boathouse vault to the top of the list? That needs to be investigated as well.


Besides the $7M from the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant settlement, Greenpoint is eligible for $19.5M from the Exxon oil spill settlement:

"The Greenpoint Community Environmental Fund is a $19.5 million grant program launched in 2011 by the NYS Attorney General’s Office and the Department of Environmental Conservation (the State). Funding for the GCEF was obtained by the State in a settlement with ExxonMobil over its Greenpoint oil spill. The overall goal of the GCEF is to secure significant environmental improvements in Greenpoint. More specifically, the GCEF is:

• Designed to support projects that address the community’s environmental priorities, such as improving water quality, groundwater, open space, toxic pollution and air quality.
• Committed to a transparent and objective process, and to engaging and partnering with the Greenpoint community. This includes ensuring the community has a direct, continuing role in guiding the GCEF’s development and implementation.

The State established a Greenpoint Community Advisory Panel (CAP) -- a group of Greenpoint residents, representatives of local organizations and elected officials -- to provide direct, ongoing input to the State on the GCEF. The CAP has played a central role in guiding the Fund's development and implementation, including helping to create the process used for selecting a General Administrator for the GCEF, as well as for soliciting, evaluating, and selecting projects to receive grant funding."

Some members of the advisory panel:

• Christine Holowacz, GWAPP (sponsoring NBBC for Wastewater Treatment Plant money)
  
• Dewey Thompson, North Brooklyn Boat Club
  
• Gina Argento, builder of hotel where boathouse will be located
  
• Kate Zidar, Newtown Creek Alliance (sponsoring NBBC for Wastewater Treatment Plant money)
  
• Katie Denny, Open Space Alliance (sponsoring NBBC for Exxon settlement money)
  
• Michael Heimbinder, Newtown Creek Alliance
  
• Phillip Muesgaas, Riverkeeper (sharing office space with boat club)
  
• Ronald Van Cooten, LaGuardia College (sharing programming with boat club)
  

What's wrong with this picture?  All of these people have a connection to the North Brooklyn Boat Club's boathouse project and they sit on an advisory board which will determine whether or not the project, which appears on the preliminary list 5 times, is worthy of funding. From the list of preliminary projects:

• Green roof on boathouse
• Additional funding for North Brooklyn boat club on Newtown Creek
• Fund purchase of boats for, or building of boats at, boathouse being constructed with Newtown Creek EBP funds at GMDC
• Expand boathouse to create youth employment via boat-building
• Kayaking program for Bushwick Inlet

From July 2013 minutes:

A CAP member asked for clarification on whether the construction of new buildings would be considered an eligible project and the conversation turned to whether it would be helpful to produce a list of ineligible projects? The GA explained at this time it is impossible to say whether a specific proposal would be eligible or ineligible because that decision is based upon review process and screening factors described in the RFP. But the RFP will describe ineligible project types to receive funding from the GCEF. The GA agreed to create a checklist for prospective applications with ineligibility criteria. However, the GA pointed out that a proposal for construction of a new building would have to meet a very high bar to be considered eligible for funding. The building would have to provide multiple environmental benefits, funds could be provided for specific environmental enhancements associated with the building such as solar panels etc., the applicant would have to have site control, and provide a high match.

Interesting how they ask if construction of a new building will be covered, and then the following month, Gina Argento suddenly is added to the board.

From August 2013 conference call:

CAP Recruitment. Filip Stabrowski, NBDC, announced the addition of four new CAP members:
Gina Argento of Broadway Stages
Heidi Shea Springer of Greenpoint Gardens
Joanna Micek an Independent Consultant
Ronald VanCooten of LaGuardia College
This brings the total number of voting CAP members to 15.

(No minutes have been posted since October. The panel has monthly meetings.  There was a deadline of December 2013 for submission of grant proposals, but there has been no update as to which were submitted before the deadline.)

These are large grant pre-proposals:

**** Applicant: Open Space Alliance For North Brooklyn, Inc
Title: Greenpoint Marine Environmental Center (GMEC) (#42888)
Description: This project proposes a fully developed marine environmental education center near the mouth of Newtown Creek, to connect residents with the plethora of issues and conditions present in our local waterbodies. The center will be part of the 10,000 square foot Greenpoint Boathouse and Environmental Education Center. Location: 437 McGuinness Blvd. at Ash Street.
Grant Request: $135,000
Matching Funds: $112,500
Contact Information: Kurt Cavanaugh, gcef@osanb.org, (347) 842-7915

**** Applicant: Open Space Alliance For North Brooklyn, Inc
Title: Environmental Education Shed (ED Shed) (#42742)
Description: The ED Shed is a hands-on environmental educational and research outpost dedicated to establishing and elevating the connection between Greenpoint residents and their surrounding marine environs.
Location: The North Brooklyn Boat Club (NBBC) - 437 McGuinness Blvd. at Ash Street, Greenpoint. The Ed Shed is located 100 feet from the Newtown Creek shore and the North Brooklyn Boat Club floating dock.
Grant Request: $24,426 Matching Funds: $3,600
Contact Information: Kurt Cavanaugh, gcef@osanb.org, (347) 842-7915

**** Applicant: Open Space Alliance For North Brooklyn, Inc
Title: Floating Classrooms on Greenpoint's Waterways (#42037)
Description: The North Brooklyn Boat Club will expand environmental education on Greenpoint’s waterways through the purchase and deployment of two large canoes and the development of an educational curriculum.
Location: Greenpoint Grant Request: $24,693
Matching Funds: $25,000 Contact Information: Kurt Cavanaugh, gcef@osanb.org, (347) 842-7915

And all this conflict of interest was found on a website operated by 

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and the NYSDEC.

Miss Heather has more on the phoniness of the organizations involved in this whole thing. It's definitely worth a read to those who are opposed to tweeding, which this is in its most blatant form.

It's time to BRING IN THE FEDS.

Something reeks at Newtown Creek (and it isn't the water)!

Miss Heather has posted some eye-opening screenshots that seem to indicate that the Argentos of Knockdown Center fame have pulled another fast one on communities on both sides of Newtown Creek. How did they accomplish this? Let’s take a trip back in time to 2010…

Back then, it was announced that the City Parks Foundation was looking for participants to attend meetings to help determine how the Newtown Creek Environmental Benefit Project Funds were to be distributed. People from both sides of the Creek were invited to share their wishes, and ultimately a vote was taken to determine the top finalists.

Here is the list that was published after the vote tally:

The list was vetted by DEC and the NY Attorney General's office, and the final result was this:

You’ll note that a boathouse was the number one vote-getter. It wasn't. It actually came in third, but for some reason, it was given priority over the other projects ahead of it. It’s also controversial because the Dept of Health actually doesn’t want people paddling around Newtown Creek for health reasons, but the Parks Dept & City Planning convinced them to keep it on the list.

Christine Holowacz and "Commodore" Dewey Thompson.
Photo by Stefano Giovannini from the Brooklyn Paper.

Christine Holowacz is often referred to as a Greenpoint “community activist”. She and "Commodore" Dewey Thompson (that's what he prefers to be called) are allied with GWAPP, which is the group that pushed for the boathouse with a massive get-out-the-vote drive, including relentless blast e-mails. GWAPP members are also members of various other astroturf groups that were created to make it appear that the whole area wants a boathouse.

GWAPP seems to be under the impression that the entire $7M in Creek funds is theirs:

On October 25, 2011, the DEC and CPF submitted a letter [PDF (3.5MB)] approving the funds of the EBP to building out the boathouse, promising up to $7 million for the project. Runner-up projects would receive any leftover funding that was not used in the creation of the boathouse, however those project cannot receive funding until the principal project, the boathouse, is completed.

Unless there were some closed door shenanigans that we are not aware of, that is not the case. They were approved for $3M as noted in the screenshot above.

The address of the boathouse, as per the Newtown Creek website started December 2013, is now 437 McGuinness Blvd, aka 51 Ash Street. The website also says, "Holowacz and Thompson are currently working to finalize a location to house the boathouse and environmental education center."

Finalize a location? Why is that? The project was approved for 1155 Manhattan Avenue, the site of the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center. These are very specific, detailed plans, incorporating the architecture and history of the previously proposed site. How can they just pick up and move to a not-yet-built site? And how is DEC ok with this?

So, what do you get when you pull up the DOB filing for 51 Ash Street? An application to build a 4-story hotel, with a “private club” listed as the "community facility" that allows the owner to build larger than what is normally allowed. The owner? None other than Broadway Stages, co-owned by Gina and Tony Argento! If the "private club" is temporary, then how do they calculate an augmented FAR based on its inclusion?  Could it be the new permanent home of the North Brooklyn Boat Club?

Is the "Greenpoint Waterfront Association for Parks and Planning" actually pushing for a private boathouse? How do so-called environmentalists sleep at night knowing they have sold out their community to people who "lack good character, honesty and integrity" in exchange for a boathouse? The club currently charges $40 for membership per year. How can public funds be released to build a boathouse that is only open to members? Who the hell in Greenpoint, outside of these charlatans, wants to see a boathouse built with environmental settlement money inside a hotel right next to the Pulaski Bridge?

Bottom line: GWAPP is getting the money for their private club, the Argentos are getting an FAR increase to build a bigger hotel, and everyone benefits except the rest of the neighborhood.

AND NOW LET’S GET TO QUEENS.
From City Parks Foundation:

The Dutch Kills Basin Park Project proposed to construct a park with athletic fields and waterfront access. The proposed park location is along 47th Avenue between 27th and 29th Streets, in the area adjoining the Dutch Kills basin. Long Island City Roots is serving as the primary community representative for the proposed project. City Parks Foundation partnered with The Trust for Public Land (TPL) in evaluating the proposed park location. TPL submitted a letter of inquiry to the property owners of the parcels required to construct the park in the proposed location. The property owners did not respond to TPL’s letter. While awaiting response from the property owners, City Parks Foundation contracted with Goodman-Marks Associates to perform an appraisal of the proposed park location. The appraised value of the property greatly exceeded the proposed project budget. Given this information, DEC determined that the initial project location is infeasible. CPF is currently working with Long Island City community groups in an attempt to find an alternate location.

The decision posted in the second photo above states,

“If after all the projects in the primary group are implemented or projects have been determined to be infeasible to implement and additional mitigation funds remain uncommitted, the State will propose a prioritized list of projects for implementation from the secondary group.”

The language is quite clear. If a project isn’t going to happen, then it’s removed from the list and the DEC draws from the second group. It doesn't say that they'll sit and wait for the people behind a project to scramble to find an alternate location. Yet that is exactly what is happening with the Greenpoint Boathouse and the Dutch Kills Basin Park Project.

Wouldn’t it have been smarter to fund them in the order that they were ready to go? For example, planting trees could have been first and would already be making an impact. If the St. Saviour’s ULURP had been funded back in 2011, there might have been a park at that site instead of warehouses. The DEC knocked that relatively inexpensive item off the list completely, yet kept the construction of the park on, which expedited the death of the project.

The Pulaski Bridge Study was ready to go.
Renovation of McCarren Park would be finished by now.
The Greenpoint Monitor Museum was ready to go as well. (Oooooh, but that would have held back the development of the greenway along the coast! We can’t have that. The site of the Monitor Museum has been proposed for public restrooms. Which means the city will eventually own it. Which means eminent domain.)

Instead everyone now must sit by and wait for a hotel to be built next to the Pulaski Bridge. Because the actual polluting of the Creek wasn't enough punishment.

More to come! Stay tuned!

Hipster boat vacated by FDNY

From Eyewitness News:

A boat in Brooklyn was vacated by firefighters Friday after a tip that people were illegally on board.

FDNY searched the boat and found evidence that people were living on the boat, and using it as a work space.

Firefighters went to the boat at around 11:30 a.m. after receiving the tip. They found 10 people on board at the time.

The boat, docked near Morgan Avenue and Stagg Street in Bushwick, has been deemed a hazard and vacated.

An area was carved into the hull of the boat and separated into nine bedrooms.

Artists and sculptures were using the boat as a work space. There were paint cans, gasoline canisters, and candles on board.

There was also a hot tub and an area on the deck being used as a pool.

Water and electricity were running to the boat from a nearby, vacant lot.

The boat was not registered with the Coast Guard.

I wonder if they realize the history of the spot they're inhabiting...

City breaks ground on waterfront development

From Crains:

The Bloomberg administration broke ground Monday on the first phase of a huge residential project on the Queens waterfront that is destined to become the largest such development since Co-op City was built in the Bronx over forty years ago.

First to rise in Hunter's Point South section of Long Island City will be a pair of 30-plus story apartment towers, with 925 units. Before sinking his ceremonial shovel to the soil the mouth of Newtown Creek, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that two more towers will follow. The administration is poised to kick off the second phase of the project next month, when the city seeks a developer for another 1,000 units.

Monday's ceremony is another indication that the mayor is not shirking away from the waterfront in the wake of Superstorm Sandy.

So we're subsidizing waterfront development in an area that was underwater during the hurricane. That's really smart. 27 inch sea level rise by 2050...

NYC needs a thorough sanitization

From the Daily News:

The flood waters that inundated the region mixed together a hazardous stew of oil, industrial chemicals and raw sewage that could leave a lasting scar on the environment and make cleanup more difficult and costly.

“This has blown away all worst-case scenarios,” said Paul Gallay, president of the environmental group Riverkeeper.

Gallay and other advocates are that worried that Sandy’s fury washed away toxic materials from Superfund sites like the Gowanus Canal and Newtown Creek in Brooklyn.

“It is a pretty serious concern,” said Laura Haight, an environmental specialist with the New York Public Interest Research Group.

State and city officials said they are working to address the environmental issues and are urging New Yorkers to avoid contact with standing water left over from the floods.

State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens announced Thursday he was dispatching emergency management teams to storm-impacted areas to assist local officials with the clean up.