Council Member wants Coney Island Boardwalk landmarked

From the Daily News:

The City Council threw its support behind landmarking the Coney Island Boardwalk on Thursday, passing a resolution urging the city to protect the iconic stretch.

Councilman Mark Treyger (D-Brooklyn) got unanimous support for his resolution, although the Landmarks Preservation Commission has balked at making the move.

Treyger wants the landmark status in part to stop plans to convert much of the boardwalk from traditional wood planks into concrete and fake wood.

Coney Island's wooden boardwalk is now in Italy

From Brooklyn Daily:

Wood from the Riegelmann Boardwalk that was supposedly damaged during Superstorm Sandy is being reused in Italy — as a boardwalk.

In a classic case of one city’s trash being another’s tesaro, architects who designed the U.S.A. Pavilion at Milan’s Expo 2015 used lumber from Brooklyn’s Boardwalk to build an indoor boardwalk at the Italian World’s Fair. The city has for years been trying to convince residents that concrete and synthetic boards are better suited for beachfront walkways — and has routinely replaced portions of the wooden Boardwalk, which stretches from Coney Island to the edge of Manhattan Beach, with non-wood options — upsetting old-school Boardwalk advocates who say it is the wood that makes it good.

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And to them, the ironic move to repurpose Boardwalk wood to make a boardwalk could be the last straw.

“What a travesty — shipping our Boardwalk’s wood off to another country to be re-purposed and enjoyed there, while we have plastic and concrete shoved down our throats,” wrote Coney–Brighton Boardwalk Alliance president Rob Burstein in a letter to us when he heard of the Italian job.

Biber Architects designed the Milan boardwalk and purchased the timber from salvagers Sawkill Lumber, who harvested the historic planks for the city after Sandy “wrecked” the wooden walkway in 2012, a Biber spokeswoman said.

Little Neck LIRR staircase in bad shape

"The station overpass at Little Neck was given el cheapo plywood railings, which are falling apart already. Someone is going to get a handful of splinters from this.

I plan on bombarding Lex Luthor Vallone with this stuff when he assumes." - anonymous

$1.5M to study the Passerelle

From the Daily News:

Many visitors to Flushing Meadows-Corona Park will find themselves crossing a rundown wooden walkway, but few will be aware of its significance.

It’s the Passerelle Pedstrian Bridge, and it is a little-known portion of Queens’ past. And now, the 74-year-old connector is slated to receive a major overhaul.

The city is conducting a $1.5 million, 18-month assessment of the World’s Fair-era wooden esplanade, which leads riders of the 7 train into Flushing Meadows-Corona Park near the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, officials said.

The years have not been kind to the heavily trafficked pathway. The city is trying to determine the cost and scope of a complete reconstruction.

Boardwalk reconstruction: wood vs. concrete

From the NY Post:

It’s going to be a lot harder to lumber along a rebuilt Rockaways boardwalk if Mayor Bloomberg has his way.

With most of the 5.5-mile walkway reduced to rubble by Hurricane Sandy, the mayor says it’s time to end the fierce debate over whether to switch from wood to a more durable concrete at all city beaches.

“I guess this settles the issue of wooden boardwalks versus concrete boardwalks,” Bloomberg declared during a visit to the offices of The Wave, the 119-year-old local newspaper.

“There will be no more wooden boardwalks in Rockaway or anywhere else.”

Queens Borough President Helen Marshall was quickly on board.

“It makes a lot of sense after seeing first hand the damage Sandy did to the Rockaway boardwalk,” she said.

“I understand that the boardwalk represents tradition, nostalgia and happy memories, but concrete makes a lot of sense for a lot of reasons. The concrete portion of our boardwalk withstood Sandy’s fury and held, sustaining some cracks.”

But John Cori, of the civic group Friends of Rockaway Beach, said the mayor has a tin ear when it comes to community input and called on the city to let residents decide.

Cori said the placement of protective jetties determined which sections of the beach survived, not the composition of the walkway.

“There’s no settlement of the argument that concrete is going to stand up better than wood,” Cori insisted.

“When there were no rock jetties, the boardwalk was 100 percent removed from its foundation. When there was, the small concrete section maintained itself in position.”

Above are 2 sections of boardwalk right next to each other that were destroyed. The concrete is on the left, wood on the right. Here are more photos from A Walk in the Park:




Does it look like the concrete held up better with "just a few cracks?" It seems more like neither the wood nor the concrete was fastened strong enough to withstand the tidal surge.

Boardwalk will stay broken for a long time

From NY1:

The city Department of Parks and Recreation just spent nearly $4 million fixing damage to the boardwalk from Hurricane Irene in 2011. Then Sandy came through, and now parks officials have to start again from scratch.

The worst damage occurred in the most widely used sections. And though it seems far away, parks officials are already looking at how to accommodate the millions expected to visit when summer rolls around.

The commissioner said the department cannot do a full reconstruction by next summer, and there is no estimate of what it will cost.

She said parks officials will discuss the long-term situation with elected officials and the community, including whether to use concrete or wood for a future boardwalk.

From CBS New York:

Beach replenishment advocates in the Rockaways are calling for a jetty field off the shore of Rockaway Beach to help prevent future damage similar to what was brought on by superstorm Sandy.

“Not having rock jetties in the Rockaways is equivalent to no levies in New Orleans. It’s exactly the same thing. It’s a massive problem and they’ve been kicking the can down the road. We need this more than anything. It makes no sense for people to put boilers in their homes in Belle Harbor if the water’s going to be coming down the block next week,” said Friends of Rockaway Beach co-founder John Cori.

The issue, according to experts, is the cost. A single rock jetty costs $1 million to build. Cori estimates 50 jetties are needed to help protect the Rockaways.