Swimming banned in Riis Park because of shore erosion

 

The Wave

Bay 1, a section of Riis Park Beach will be closed to swimming access, which is anticipated to be the case for the remainder of the season. 

“Beach erosion has created unsafe conditions along the Bay 1 waters and eastern beach, exposing deteriorating wooden groins and other structures. The exposed structures could be dangerous to swimmers. The closures will be adjusted as necessary but is anticipated to remain in place for the rest of the summer,” the National Parks Department said in a Statement. 

Bay 1, the beach closest to Neponsit, is a highly trafficked beach, and is also an NYC LBGTQ historic sight, as it is considered as a safe haven for that community.

“We want to make sure that our visitors are able to enjoy this space safely. The hazards are not always visible, especially at high tide, which is why swimming is not allowed in Bay 1,” said Jen Nersesian, Gateway superintendent. “We know how important this area is to the LGBTQ+ community of NYC and are pursuing long-term options so that this beach can be enjoyed for many summers to come.”

Synthetic beach by the Hudson gets city OK

  

6 sq ft.

What at first appeared a lofty dream is now closer to reality. The Hudson River Park Trust on Thursday announced three requests for proposals for the construction of Manhattan’s first public beach. The project includes a 5.5-acre public park on the Gansevoort Peninsula in the Meatpacking District that would be home to a resilient “beach” with kayak access, a sports field, scenic lounge spots, and a large public art installation.

The site, located on the western end of Little West 12th Street and what remains of 13th Avenue, formerly served as a parking lot for the city’s Department of Sanitation. In 2019, the Hudson River Park Trust tapped James Corner Field Operations, the team behind the High Line and Domino Park, to design the new park.

The park at Gansevoort Peninsula will include a sandy beach area with kayak and small boat access, a lawn, a seating area north of the waterfront, a sports field, a dog run, lounge chairs, and a salt marsh with native grass and plantings.

Tar balls found on the sands on Riis Park beach caused by oil tanker spill

Gothamist

On Thursday, the Dublin Express spilled an unknown quantity of fuel from its 300,000 gallon tank into Arthur Kill waterway, thanks to a 15-square-inch hole in its hull. Watchstanders caught the leak while the ship was moored at the Global Marine New York Container Terminal off Staten Island; responders hauled the wounded vessel up onto a containment boom and temporarily closed down the port so they could skim the surrounding waters. As of Friday evening, the Coast Guard said it had sent "60 responders, 10 vessels, four skimmers, two vacuum trucks, two vacuum trailers for recovered oil product, and 15,000 feet of containment boom" to deal with the incident.


By Saturday, however, the Coast Guard had received reports of "oil sheen and tar balls" in the waters off of Coney Island and Long Island, from Norton Point to Atlantic Beach. The Coast Guard deployed flight crews to survey the situation from the air, along with its Shoreline Cleanup and Assessment Technique (SCAT) teams to investigate on the ground. They spotted a swath of tar balls about 400 feet long and 2 feet wide on Jacob Riis beach in the Rockaways on Sunday, and today, Unified Command will send out "crews proficient in the cleanup of tar balls" to tackle the infestation once "the tide is favorable," according to a news release.

A beach grows in Manhattan

 NY Post


The same firm that designed the High Line will soon plan out the borough’s first public beach just a block away — on the 5-acre spit of land jutting off Gansevoort Street in the West Village, The Post has learned.

When the $60 million Gansevoort Peninsula portion of the Hudson River Park Trust’s $900 million park renovation project is completed, after two years of construction, in 2022, it will be the largest single greenspace in the 4-mile-long Hudson River Park, planners said Wednesday.

 The beach and its rocky Hudson River shoreline will be built on Gansevoort Peninsula, which until two years ago was the site of a Department of Sanitation salt storage building. An FDNY fireboat house and dock remain at the site, at least for now.

 The future design will provide direct waterfront access to the public while serving as a protective barrier against flooding and storm surge, trust CEO Madelyn Wils said in a statement.

 The construction money will come from a combination of state, city and private funding, she said, along with $152 million secured by the trust through three air rights sales, she said.

The waterfront will be “unlikely to include swimming access,” said Wils.

Climate change? What climate change?

 

City closing stretch of Rockaway beaches for safety's sake

From CBS 2:

Longtime resident John Cori spoke to CBS2 in April about the ongoing erosion that he says should have been addressed and resolved years ago.

“It’s not unexpected,” he said. “We’ve been talking about this and warning the city.”

Cori adds that the Army Corps of Engineers has been slow to act.

“We know the issue, they’re closing the beaches,” he said. “We need to get the federal government in.”

City beaches are slated to open this Memorial Day Weekend, but the area between Beach 91st street and Beach 102nd Street will officially be off-limits. A section of beach in front of the 97th Street concessions area and bathrooms will be open, but there will be no access to the water.

Developer decides against Ridgewood beer beach

From the Queens Chronicle:

La Playa NYC has been shut down before it could even open.

According to the developer of 176 Woodward Ave. in Ridgewood, there will be no popup beach and beer garden operated by the Rockaway Brewing Co. at the site as planned.

"We pulled the plug on the plan," said David Schwartz, a principal at Slate Property Group, in a Tuesday phone interview. "It just became too much."

Schwartz said the hope was to have the venue open by early June, but securing a certificate of occupancy and a liquor license — all while a number of area residents voiced their opposition to the plan — meant La Playa NYC could not open until August at the latest.

"I don't think we had the time to address the people's concerns, there wasn't enough time to handle anything," he said. "It wasn't enough time to make it worthwhile. You can't just be open for August."

Have you all heard of Slate Property Group before? Let's just say that right now they have bigger things to worry about than running a hipster beach.

Ridgewood beach gets benched

This must be the all time record for a rejection at the SLA. Go to this page, scroll down about 15 entries and look for #113 Rockaway Beach Brewing Company.

No C of O = No permit. NEXT!

Once decent newspaper advertises hipster beach that didn't open

This is just sooo pathetic. And so not surprising considering the current ownership of the Times Newsweekly.

Here's something from the Queens Tribune that Schneps & company neglected to mention:

Bill Crowley, SLA spokesman, said they received petitions and the letter from Nolan. He noted that under different circumstances the SLA’s staff would approve the liquor license but since they have opposition, it will have to go before the SLA board.

Crowley said they recently sent the Rockaway Brewery Company a deficiency letter because they have yet to get state approval for doing business as LaPlaya NYC and not sending in photos of the interior of the proposed business.

Hipster beer beach shut down by DOB

It's really gotta suck to be one of these "urban pioneers" and find out the hard way that the shit you're peddling ain't going over with certain community minded folk. Let's take the Ridgewood beer beach. It got shut down by the DOB just before tomorrow's scheduled grand opening. Why? Well they are doing construction on a building without a permit.

The C of O for this property also does not allow a "beer beach" or whatever the hell this thing is supposed to be.

But you wanna know what's really amusing about this? They are trying to pass off their delayed opening as a concession to the community. From QNS:

Marcus Burnett, co-owner of Rockaway Brewing Company, which is hosting La Playa NYC, is working to address the community’s issues with the beer garden.

“We are trying to work with Community Board 5 and we understand that residents are raising concerns,” Burnett said. “One common misconception is that there is going to be live bands or live music. There will be no live bands and no DJ parties, that’s for sure.”

No live music or DJs? Then please explain this previous statement:

Throughout the summer La Playa NYC will also feature local talent including DJs, guest chefs, beer talks and special performances, ensuring a summer of beach, beer and fun for the whole community.

Here's the cherry on top of this shit sundae:

The opening of La Playa NYC depends on the results of the SLA hearing, which is scheduled to take place later this month.

So you were going to open without a liquor permit, but as a favor to the community, decided to wait until you actually had the SLA hearing? How wonderful of you.

2-year beer beach suddenly becomes 4 months

From PIX11:

The lease for the pop-up beach is expected to run from June through September. In September, the owners of the lot will break ground, as planned, on a new residential building that will have affordable housing units.

Oh? That's interesting since they told the community board that they have a 2-year lease:

According to CB 5 District Manager Gary Giordano, Rockaway Brewing Company has secured a two-year lease with the owners of the Woodward Avenue corner property.

Maybe next year, instead of a sand beach they'll make a concrete foundation beach!

"The owners seem like they want to be respectful to the neighborhood, even though their idea seems quite out there and inventive," said Giordano.

(As evidenced by the fence behind you collapsing onto the sidewalk.)

Ridgewood can still take solace in the fact that a guy who rides his bike on the sidewalk and is threatening to wear a Speedo thinks this is a great idea.

Hipster "beach" replacing affordable housing project in Ridgewood

From QNS:

Several Ridgewood residents at Wednesday’s Community Board 5 meeting in Middle Village spoke out against the Rockaway Brewing Company’s pop-up urban beach beer garden, La Playa NYC, which is set to open on June 4 at 176 Woodward Ave. on the Ridgewood/Bushwick border.

“We are opposing the pop-up beach and a liquor license,” said one resident who wished to remain anonymous. “We don’t want the noise that’s going to come with this, the traffic, the littering, the smoking and we have a lot of working people who work days and evenings in the neighborhood, the elderly, the physically sick.”

La Playa NYC is being billed as the city’s first pop-up urban beach beer garden and will ship in 140 cubic yards of Long Island sand and be fully decorated in a beach theme with beach chairs, sun umbrellas, a thatched palapa, beach volleyball courts and kiddie pools.

The pop-up beer garden will run from June 4 through September. It will operate Mondays through Thursdays from 5 p.m. to midnight, and from noon to midnight on Fridays through Sundays and will feature local talent including DJs, guest chefs, beer talks and special performances.

As a brewery, Rockaway Brewing Company is allowed to have five remote sites where they can conduct business, CB 5 Chairperson Vincent Arcuri said. However, Rockaway Brewing Company has not named 176 Woodward Ave. as one of those sites as of yet, he added.

According to CB 5 District Manager Gary Giordano, Rockaway Brewing Company has secured a two-year lease with the owners of the Woodward Avenue corner property.

I had to read this several times to fully absorb the abject stupidity of it.

1) We live in a city and on an island surrounded by beaches, yet a bunch of dopes are going to go to a filthy truck lot in Ridgewood, which has no water at all, to grill food and drink beer on a fake beach? And they're going to bring their toddlers?

2) To create this fake beach, they will truck sand in from Long Island, where we're spending hundreds of millions of tax dollars on beach replenishment in an effort to avoid more storm damage. How environmentally and fiscally friendly!

3) Why are the local papers going ga ga over this idea while failing to report the actual news here, which is that the owner of the lot obtained a zoning change in order to construct a mixed use project, and only won the approval of the local council member when affordable housing was included, but now is opening a douchebag paradise for the brahs for at least 2 years? What's going on with the housing? No comment from the council member about the switcheroo?

We're now expected to fawn over the thought of a bunch of lame millenials getting skin cancer and dancing around a polluted former garbage dump? What the hell happened to journalism in this town?

Ass Hat At Rockaway Beach

How Smoking Is Affecting Young People's Brains

Petition to clean up Charles Park

From the Queens Chronicle:

Having Charles Park Beach so close to her house was a major selling point when Debra Ann DiMeglio moved to Howard Beach in January.

But all wasn’t as it seemed. She quickly became disappointed to see how many people were throwing their garbage on the beach and its surrounding park — a longtime problem in the area, according to residents.

“It’s just terrible what’s going on there,” DiMeglio said. “It doesn’t give a good face to the community.”

Now, she and her sister are on a mission to get the National Parks Service to improve the maintenance of the federal parkland — and their cries are backed by close to 250 people who so far have signed onto a petition in want of a cleaner park.

“The whole park needs to be cleaned up. This should not be,” DiMeglio said.

In an online petition at Change.org, DiMeglio and her sister Sheri say Charles Park, located at 9600 165 Ave., “was once a beautiful park, where residents would enjoy their visits and the beautiful view.”

They couldn’t say the same for today.

“The beaches are horrendous,” DiMeglio said. “When I walk around I’m seeing all the debris and dirt and people barbecuing. There’s barbecue charcoal everywhere.”

She’s not alone in that assessment.

“The park looks like a junkyard,” Steven Sirgiovanni said. “I wouldn’t want to have a kid or a dog going in there.”

Rockaway beachgoers whine about fines

From the NY Post:

The NYPD is taking aim at Rockaways beachgoers — cracking down on minor infractions such as drinking beer, walking dogs and climbing on rock jetties, The Post has learned.

During the Memorial Day weekend, cops issued 152 “quality-of-life violation” summonses — three times more than the same period last year.

“It sucks! They’re targeting families who are just trying to enjoy themselves at the beach — people who might drink one or two beers in a red cup,” said the manager of a popular Rockaways restaurant, who asked that her name and establishment not be revealed.

“We’ve had cops drive past us on the beach and ask to see what’s in our coolers.”

She added that cops recently ticketed her husband for walking his dog on the beach, against the rules.

“There are a lot of areas around here, where there is real crime. They should put more time into that!”

And maybe you shouldn't drink in public or walk your dog where it's not allowed. Other summonsable offenses mentioned in the report: public urination and littering. Oh, those are terrible things to give summonses for!

A sunken forest for Arverne?

From Capital New York:

The architects behind a "double dune" system envisioned for parts of the Rockaways are pushing an even more ambitious proposal for the barrier peninsula: a sunken Forest.

"It's more for animals than for people, but the part for the people is primarily resiliency against flooding and sea surges," said Walter Meyer, who runs Local Office Landscape Architecture with his wife, Jennifer Bolstad.

Last Wednesday, Meyer, Bolstad and the developers they are working with presented their Sunken Forest-like proposal to the public at a charter school in Far Rockaway, part of a larger bid to win community and government backing for a mixed-use development called Arverne East.

Arverne East, in turn, is the latest in a multi-phase plan to build a new neighborhood on more than 300 city-controlled acres between Beach 32nd and Beach 84th streets in the Rockaways. That partially complete neighborhood is already home to than 1,000 families, but the Arverne East portion has been hampered by, among other things, the real estate crash.

Now, after Hurricane Sandy, the developers are re-imagining the project with the 50-acre nature park as one of its most beguiling features.

Boardwalk finally being rebuilt

From DNA Info:

Construction on the first phase of the multimillion dollar Rockaway Beach boardwalk project began Monday, more than a year after it was partially destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, city officials said.

The first phase of the $274 million project began on Beach 86th Street with the removal of some concrete pilings that had held up the historic boardwalk for decades, according to a Parks Department spokesman.

Crews will remove the pilings — which officials had determined in December couldn't hold the new boardwalk, further delaying it — and rebuild the thoroughfare on steel beams instead.

Years of exposure to salt water had gotten into the concrete, officials said, and began to corrode the steel inside.

The first phase of the project runs from Beach 86th Street to Beach 97th Street and is expected to be completed by Memorial Day 2015, the Parks Department said.

Relaxing in the sun

From Shorpy:

August 19, 1959. "Linden Woods Swim Club, Howard Beach. View to clubhouse.

Here's another shot.

Rockaway beach cocktails nixed

From the Daily News:

Rockaway’s remaining food concessionaires returned to their beachfront stands for the Fourth of July, but their excitement about reopening was tempered by a newly instituted ban on hard liquor sales.
Beer and wine are still on the menu, but margaritas and mojitos are off limits.

The operators, who have been luring foodies to the beach since the city revamped the concessions in 2011, learned about the change in recent weeks, and they were unhappy about it.

They are already struggling to recover from losses inflicted by Superstorm Sandy, and they say this does nothing to help.

“We’d love to have it back,” said Lindsay Robinson, the co-owner of Low Bar near Beach 97th St., who served up margaritas and dark and stormies from the boardwalk site last summer. “We didn’t have any problems with it last year.”

The change came at the request of city lifeguards, who asked the Parks Department to nix the sale of cocktails for safety reasons, sources told the Daily News.

Lifeguards are on duty until 6 p.m. at city beaches. The time they call it a day was the same time the beachgoers were allowed to start buying cocktails.

Putting the "barrier beach" back into Rockaway

From Capital New York:

Walter Meyer, a surfer, sometime-Rockaway resident, and urban designer, has an idea on how to protect the Rockaways from some of the devastating impacts of the next Hurricane Sandy, and he says the city is listening.

Before Hurricane Sandy lifted the boardwalk from its moorings and sent it surging blocks inland, tearing at everything in its way, swimmers and sunbathers had to cross the broad, Robert Moses-designed four-lane Shore Front Parkway, complete with a median, to reach the boardwalk to get to the beach.

Moses intended Shore Front Parkway to link Brooklyn to the Hamptons, but his plans never quite panned out. Today, the parkway is lightly used, and some of its lanes have been converted to parking.

Meyer wants to halve the width of that parkway and turn it into a regular two-way, two-lane road, so that the city can build a dune forest on its southern half.

That dune system would host a forest of pitch pine, that, like the coconut palm tree of warmer climates, develops roots that lock together, holding the beach in place and creating a formidable bulwark against future floods. A typical dune forest would take two to three summers to become operational.

“But once it gets locked in, it’s amazing how strong and resilient it is,” said Meyer.

Closer to the edge of the water he's recommending the city create another, lower wall of dunes, these planted with a collection of fast-growing sand grasses that are naturally resistant to high wind and heavy salt water. The grasses, if planted soon, could be well-established by next summer.

“The primary dune is protecting the secondary from wind, and the secondary dune is protecting the primary dune from disappearing into the sea,” said Meyer.

In between the two sets of dunes, Meyer thinks the city should build a “beachwalk,” using a sort of glue pioneered in the aftermath of the first Gulf War to harden the sand into a crust and thereby prevent tanks from getting stuck.

The beachwalk would be wide enough to accommodate ambulances and bikes and pedestrians.

Beach replenishment starting in June

From the Daily News:

The first extra dose of sand is coming this June to storm-worn sections of Rockaway’s beaches.

The most eroded sections between Beach 89th and Beach 149th Sts. will get 1 million cubic yards of sand dredged from the East Rockaway Inlet, officials said Tuesday.

“We know the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been working hard to bring sand to Rockaway,” said Queens Parks Commissioner Dorothy Lewandowski. “We look forward to its arrival and will do everything we can to help get it in place as quickly and safely as possible.”

Portions of the beach will close while the sand is added.

Meanwhile, another 2.5 million cubic yards of sand is slated to beef up the entire beachfront from Beach 19th to Beach 149th streets. That project is not expected to start until August and could take between six and nine months to complete.