Frank Lloyd Crap Library coming to LIC!

From the NY Times:

The building’s beguiling appearance — with giant free-form windows carved out of an 80-foot-tall rectangular facade of rough aluminum — should make it an instantly recognizable landmark. Seen from Manhattan, it will have a haunting presence on the waterfront, flanked by the red neon Pepsi-Cola sign to the north and the remnants of an abandoned ferry terminal to the south. At dusk the library’s odd-shaped windows will emit an eerie glow, looking a bit like ghosts trapped inside a machine. And late at night, when the building is dark, spotlights will illuminate its pockmarked facade and the windows will resemble caves dug into the wall of a cliff.

Only at the site itself, however, will the optimism driving Mr. Holl’s design come into focus. The library will stand at the western edge of Queens West, a soulless mix of generic apartment towers and barren streets built up in the last decade or so that has neither the dilapidated charm of the old manufacturing neighborhoods to the east nor the density of a real urban neighborhood. (The development’s one saving grace is a narrow park that snakes along the riverfront; its steel gantries, once used for loading boats, are an ode to the area’s industrial past.)

Mr. Holl ’s design is not about escaping this world but transforming it into something more poetic. Approaching from the towers across the street, visitors will enter a tranquil reading garden, a little paradise walled off from the gloomy scene that surrounds it. Ginkgo trees will shade the garden, partly blocking the view of the towers. As visitors move closer to the library, they will be able to see through the lobby windows and out over a reflecting pool and the riverfront park. Other odd-shaped windows will allow diagonal glimpses up through the building and out to the sky.

...the overscaled cut-out openings are powerfully metaphorical. They suggest the desire to expose private, interior worlds to public scrutiny, and — by seeming to undermine the buildings’ structural stability — they evoke an unstable, ever-changing world.

Um, ok.

Who's paying for the cleanup?

From Crains:

Plans for a 20,000-square-foot library in Long Island City, Queens, along the East River, are moving ahead in a timely fashion, despite a possible lawsuit involving who should pay for the clean-up of the site.

The state's Queens West Development Corp. said it plans to sue Honeywell International to pay for the $5 million to $10 million clean-up of toxic waste on the three-quarter acre plot at Center Boulevard between 48th Avenue and 47th Drive. The state claims that a Honeywell predecessor firm used the site to make and store roofing materials, and says it will sue because yearlong negotiations with the company have broken down.

"The lawsuit will not impact the timeline for the library. It involves who ultimately will pay for the clean up," said Paul Januszewski, president of Queens West Development Corp., adding that clean up is expected to be completed by next summer. "At this point we are fronting the money and we are on schedule."

"Honeywell takes remediation of sites, for which we are responsible, very seriously," said a Honeywell spokeswoman. "Based on the information available to us, we do not believe our predecessor company ever owned the Queens site or the business, which was closed by 1915. We have cooperated fully and found no evidence."

Earlier this month, Steven Holl Architects was selected to design the new library. The city Department of Design and Construction will build the new facility. A groundbreaking date has not been set. The library has been 12 years in the making, said Donald Dodelson, president of Friends of the Queens Library and Cultural Center at Hunters Point.

Photo from OurLIC.

More schools for brownfields

From the Daily News:

Fancy condos aren't the only projects on the drawing board for once-industrial Hunters Point.

The slew of development along the East River has spurred plans for two new schools to serve about 1,650 local students.

The grades-6-through-12 school, with about 1,070 seats and an outdoor terrace overlooking the river, is slated for 1-50 51st Ave. The city is awaiting final site approval and expects the five-story facility to open in fall 2013, city officials said.

The almost 600-seat K-through-8 school is expected to be built at the Queens West site at 47th Ave. and Fifth St., according to the community board. It's an expansion of Public School 78, which currently goes up to the fifth grade, community leaders said.

But an environmental remediation must be completed on the site before construction can begin, education officials said. It is unclear when the school will open.

So will these schools be protected by underground plastic sheets and blow toxins up through pipes to the roofs where they will then be emitted out to poison the entire community? (Like what they are doing with the Maspeth High School...)

Because what LIC really needs is 900 more units...

From Curbed:

The residential project planned for the site of the East River Tennis Center at 44-02 Vernon Boulevard in New York City has been pretty firmly filed under "arrested development" for a while now. But The Real Deal reports that the freeze may be thawing. Loan-holder Durst Fetner Residential is on the verge of selling the project's note to the property's owner, who plans to get construction going. On the menu are 910 units distributed among two 28-story buildings and four eight-story ones. And on a scale of now to never, how should we rate the likelihood of construction actually happening? Turns out the developer has enough financing to start construction on 561 units (one big tower, one small) this year. Is the LIC waterfront—which has no shortage of housing under development (hello, Queens West)—hot enough to handle yet another project?

No more new parks without luxury condos?

From the NY Post:

A Queens waterfront-park project will become the first city-run green space funded by the construction of new housing, The Post has learned.

City officials confirmed that daily maintenance of an 11-acre esplanade planned for Long Island City will largely be funded with revenue from 5,000 apartments in the same project.

And park advocates fear the city's Hunters Point South development will open the door to other city parks relying on housing to survive, as a state-city quasi government entity is with Brooklyn Bridge Park.

They’re also concerned that the new park, like the 85-acre Brooklyn Bridge Park project that includes condos, will ultimately feel more like a fancy back yard for residents of the adjoining housing than a true public park.

"It's a dangerous precedent to rely on these funding schemes, as they create an enormous disparity between the haves and the have-nots," said Geoffrey Croft, of New York City Park Advocates.

"Plus, it's even worse than Brooklyn Bridge Park because Hunters Point is a denser project, with many more residents and less parkland."

With an anticipated budget of about $1.1 million, or $100,000 an acre, Hunters Point’s esplanade would also be among the city’s top-funded parks through the creation of 3,000 affordable and 2,000 market-rate adjacent apartments.

The city spends nearly $10,000 an acre in tax dollars to maintain the average park. Historically, the best ones — like Bryant and Central — are usually in elite neighborhoods that supplement their budgets with private dollars raised by well-funded conservancies.

More toxic soil dug up in LIC

From LIQCity:

Ahh yes – winter in LIC. Add ‘the sounds and smells of toxic cleanup’ to ‘chestnuts roasting on an open fire’ and you’ve got the picture, as two active remediation projects are going on in Queenswest along the LIC waterfront.

In this process, the identified toxic soil is dug up under the huge white tents that are now installed at Queenswest (meant to keep the debris/dust contained), loaded onto a truck, and transported out. This isn’t the first time toxic soil has been unearthed in LIC. Just last year there were many complaints of strange and foul smells and super-eerie dust clouds during the remediation. CB2 and Queens West Development Corp also openly asked residents to say something if they smell something, for their own health. That said, keep your nostrils open, LIC.

Rockrose split finalized

From the NY Times:

The three brothers — known as the Elghanayan brothers — who are among the city’s most prolific residential builders over the past 40 years, completed their long-awaited break-up Tuesday with the division of a multibillion dollar empire of apartments and office buildings.

The oldest brother, H. Henry Elghanayan, retained the company name, Rockrose Development, as well as 2,634 apartments in buildings ranging from the Archive building on Greenwich Street in Manhattan to the “East Coast,” a massive high rise on the waterfront in Queens. Mr. Elghanayan, the only brother with a son, Justin, in the family business, initiated the split. He and his son, he said, wanted to go out on their own to develop some land that they had acquired over the years.

Mr. Elghanayan also held onto a large development site across 11th Avenue from the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on Manhattan’s West Side and three development sites at Court Square in Long Island City.

His younger brothers, Thomas and Frederick Elghanayan, will operate as TF Cornerstone, with 3,200 apartments and seven office towers, including the family’s most well known, Carnegie Hall Tower on West 57th Street. They control two of the three towers the brothers built at Queens West, as well as three development sites there.

The brothers will share ownership of four other office buildings, and two residential buildings, including 99 John St.

The future of ferries in Queens

Dear New Yorker,

In May of 2008, the New York City Council and Mayor Bloomberg presented a three-phased plan to better utilize New York City's waterways. The first phase of our plan introduced ferry service between Rockaway, the Brooklyn Army Terminal and Pier 11 in Lower Manhattan (Wall Street). Phase 1 also included constructing a dock to complete the South Williamsburg, Brooklyn, landing to facilitate privately subsidized ferry service.

Now, the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) have begun a six-month Comprehensive Citywide Ferry Study. This study aims to further expand ferry service around New York City and identify areas in each borough that are suitable for new ferry landing sites.

If you care about this issue as much as I do, please join us at a Queens Town Hall Forum and let your voice be heard!

When: Tuesday, July 21st at 11 a.m.

Where: Borough Hall, Room 213, 12055 Queens Boulevard, Jamaica

Host: Borough President Helen Marshall

Co-Hosts: Council Members John Liu, James Sanders, Jr. and Peter Vallone Jr.

About: New Ferry Service in Queens

The NYCDEC and NYCDOT have identified potential landing sites in Queens (map is attached).

As a member of the Queens community, your input on these and additional landing sites is vital to creating the best possible ferry service for all New Yorkers. Get involved as we transform our extensive waterways into "blue highways" for all to enjoy!

Sincerely,
Christine C. Quinn
Speaker
New York City Council

(Not sure why they're calling areas that already have ferry docks "potential landing sites" but let's humor them.)