Mix of Residential, Manufacturing Called for on Brooklyn Waterfront
By Evan Barton
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
EAST RIVER — Concerned citizens from more than 53 different New York-area organizations met Thursday morning at the South Street Seaport in Manhattan to celebrate East River Day.

The groups organizing the event, the Municipal Art Society (MAS) and the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance (MWA), collaborated with the New York Water Taxi to take several dozen people on a trip up and down the East River.

The East River functions as a border for every borough except Staten Island, though the Brooklyn section was particularly emphasized. This was due in part to the recent declaration by the National Trust for Historic Preservation that the Brooklyn waterfront is the most endangered one in the country. Councilwoman Jennifer Lappin (D-Yorkville/Roosevelt Island) spoke before the trip began.

“If the city is going to accommodate a million new people,� Lappin said, “then we need new parks and more housing on the waterfront, but we should also maintain the industrial waterfront, especially in Brooklyn.�

The trip covered the span of the East River, starting at Pier 17 in Manhattan, going up to Throggs Neck in the Bronx and ending at Fulton Ferry in Brooklyn. The balance between revitalizing the waterfront, keeping its industrial use and character, and creating recreation space for common use were common threads in the talks given throughout the day.

“It would be a travesty if the waterfront was only open to rich people,� said Kent Barwick, president of the Municipal Art Society, in reference to the Brooklyn waterfront.

“This has been a place that has always had employment, so we should try to maintain industrial use in the area. The buildings that are converted into condos [for example], could keep their traditional façades, like in SoHo and Tribeca,� preserving the distinctive quality of the waterfront, he said.

The Domino Sugar factory, which closed in 2004, is one of several sites in the area that community activists hope to save from demolition. It was bought by a partnership of the Community Preservation Corporation Resources and private developer Isaac Katan. The Domino complex is one of the few areas in the city that was not rezoned for residential use in 2005, though Katan and CPCR plan to build 2,200 units of housing in the complex.

The Waterfront Preservation Alliance of Williamsburg and Greenpoint launched a petition and letter-writing campaign to the Landmarks Commission, which will now be holding a public hearing tomorrow, June 26, before deciding on any further action.

The building of the container port in Red Hook, which uses a giant crane to move containers from ships onto the piers, resulted from a modernizing process that put many of the old docks out of business. Many of the now-empty docks along the Brooklyn piers will be cleared away for Brooklyn Bridge Park. Still, some industry survives on the waterfront, and Stephanie Thayer, a member of the Open Space Alliance of North Brooklyn, emphasized that industry does not necessarily negate open space and community activity on the water.

‘Open Space and Industry Can Mesh’
“Open space and industry can mesh,� she said, “especially where industry is servicing New York’s economy directly. If we’re going to think about New York’s future, then we have to think about sustainability, and sustainability means we’ve got to be able to produce things for ourselves.�

Another topic of discussion concerned thinking about ways to increase water traffic throughout the five boroughs. Seventy percent of the goods that enter New York enter by water. Increasing this percentage, many suggested, would further improve air quality as well as traffic conditions by taking thousands of trucks off the road.

Roland Lewis, president of the Metropolitan Water Alliance, spoke that afternoon on the possibility of increasing water traffic at Fulton Ferry Landing. “Water-bound transportation should be just as accessible as any other means of transportation,� he said. “That little yellow MetroCard should work on that Water Taxi just as well as it works on buses and subways.�

The East River Day events concluded with a 30-minute film screened in the abandoned shed on Pier 2. The film was a rhetorical documentary, using politicians, activists, and water enthusiasts to advocate for industrial and recreational development of New York’s waterfronts.

In particular, it advocated developing natural boundaries on the water’s edge, allowing access points for New Yorkers to boat, kayak and touch the water. This would also decrease the flow of runoff into the East River when it rains.

The most passionate argument for the waterfront, however, was probably given in Long Island City around noontime by Queens Borough President Helen Marshall. Speaking in the shadow of four relatively new high-rise condo buildings, she spoke on the relationship between the people, the city, and the developers.

“This is a guerilla war,� she said in summation, “and we’ve got to fight to save our waterfront.�

© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2007
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