Author: linked

At a rally pushing for the downzoning of Carroll Gardens yesterday, blogger and City Council candidate Gary Reilly said that he was fighting to keep Carroll Gardens from “becoming the next Williamsburg”. Today, on his blog, Reilly had this to say about his comment:

A quick note on the Williamsburg comment, before it’s taken out of context – I’ve got nothing against Williamsburg. What I’m opposed to is what crap developers and their architects like “Hot Karl” Fischer have done there . . . and for the record, Hot Karl is currently straddling Carroll Gardens and making his first deposit at 100 Luquer Street. We can’t have more of that.

We won’t take it out of context at all – and won’t even take offense. The fact is, 90% (or more) of the buildings going up in Williamsburg and Greenpoint are crap. Some, like the crap on Karl Fischer Row, went up before contextual zoning took effect. Others, like the proposed Karl Fischer crap on Grand and Driggs is trying beat out a pending contextual zoning. Still others, like the Karl Fischer crap on Humboldt, is going up precisely where our community is working to implement more contextual zoning.

A word of warning to our friends in Carroll Gardens: a lot of the crap that is going up in Greenpoint & Williamsburg is consistent with the contextual zoning that was implemented in 2005 (R6A and R6B, predominantly). Its shorter crap, but its still crap. And other than landmarking, there’s not a lot you can do about that.

As expected, Rudy was trounced in Florida yesterday, and is expected to drop out of the race today (endorsing John McCain in the process).

On the plus side, Rudy finally managed to outpoll “fringe” candidate Ron Paul. On the minus side, the putative front-runner for most of 2007 has only two convention delegates to Paul’s six.

Lose a little, gain a little, though the net result is a permanent cutback on G service in Queens.

Rundown from the Star on the recent GWAPP parks forum.

While Brooklynites learn to live without the Water Taxi, some people are having a grand time:

[The] unhappiest travelers I found were on the subway. Worn out by drudgery, angered by slow service, they were the most vocal and the least satisfied… Other types of commuters have the opposite experiences. A group of Haverstraw residents who take the New York Water Taxi to Wall Street have become fast friends — they even hold onboard happy hours on Friday evenings, taking turns bringing food and drinks.

Live it up, folks, come May, your party will be over too. Too bad, that’ll be just the time to bring the party up topside.

[Remember this from the Post: “Rockland County kicked in a $1.2 million grant for a Haverstraw connection until April 30, 2009..”? Coincidentally, May 1 is when the East River service is scheduled to back in service.]

We haven’t noticed it, but apparently there has been an ongoing problem with gas smells on Grand Street between Berry and Wythe. The Fire Department and Keyspan have been out a couple of times, but have not located anything. Aside from an actual gas leak on the block, there are two possible sources of “the smell”.

First (and most unlikely, I think) is the NYPA power plant at the foot of Grand, next to Grand Ferry Park. When it first opened in 2002 or so we were constantly getting gas smells, particularly in back yards where it would settle. NYFD was down at the plant repeatedly, and whatever it was seemed to have been very small and related to bringing the plan on line. This was also in the summer, on generally windless days, when the gas could settle. Given the cold and windy conditions of late, this seems like an unlikely source.

The second possibility (crazier, but maybe more likely) is the kosher hot dog factory at the corner of Grand & Berry (the wall of it is shown in the foreground on the Gowanus Lounge post linked above). The factory is a constant source of odiferousness (meat processing, spices, etc.), and I noticed it was particularly stinky when I walked by yesterday afternoon. It is not a gas smell, but it is a smell that you don’t smell every day.

UPDATE: So much for theory. Keyspan has spent the evening going up and down Grand Street poking holes in the sidewalk and street, sniffing for gas leaks. They’ve spent the last hour or so digging a hole in the sidewalk in front of 69 Grand (across the street from Aurora). Looks like “actual gas leak” wins (the NYPA pipeline does not run down that far south). 25 January – 22:30.

Fred Thompson dropped out of the Republican race for President yesterday afternoon (you’re forgiven if you forgot that he was running in the first place – apparently he forgot too). Hours later, Thompson effectively won the Louisiana caucus (I say “effectively” because there is a fair amount of nuance there, but click the link to hear that).

According to TPM, had he actually been in the race, he would have earned all 47 of Louisiana’s delegates to the Republican Convention. That would have put him in the lead overall, with 55 delegates. As it is, Thompson has four times as many honest-to-goodness real delegates as Rudy Giuliani. Heck, even Ron Paul, the “fringe” candidate has more delegates than Rudy.

On the other hand, this does move Rudy into fifth place.

Via Amy’s NY Notebook – NY Water Taxi has announced that it is suspending its South Brooklyn (Brooklyn Army Terminal) commuter service. Unlike the suspension of the East River service, NYWT is not even portraying this as a seasonal cancellation. This leaves NYWT running one ferry service – from Wall Street to Yonkers and Haverstraw.

By NYWT’s accounting, the South Brooklyn service handled “a few hundred commuters daily” (the service was run on larger boats, not the yellow water taxis you see running up and down the river). By contrast, the Yonkers and Haversrtaw route carries a handful of passengers each way. So what makes a lightly-travelled route profitable for NYWT? Public subsidies – which are carrying all of the costs and also probably providing NYWT’s profit. And in its latest service cancellation press release, NYWT is now blatantly asking for more handouts to put its various Brooklyn routes back in service.

As much as I am a fan of the NYWT, it seems to me that something beyond massive public subsidies are needed. If that’s the only solution, why not just turn the whole operation over to the City and run it as a free (or very cheap) service like the Staten Island Ferry?

More realistically, if Brooklyn commuter ferries are to be viable they need two things beyond public subsidies – more commuters and private subsidies. The first comes with lower fares and more development on or near the waterfront, and that will time. At the moment, Long Island City has the largest concentration of new waterfront development. Williamsburg, on the other hand, really only has Shaeffer Landing. Northside Piers is just now nearing completion of its first phase of development. The Edge is just starting construction. Until Domino is approved and built, those two projects represent the sum of Williamsburg’s waterfront development – perhaps not the critical mass that NYWT would need to start running affordable service. (And meanwhile, nothing is happening on the Greenpoint waterfront.)

The second element – private subsidies – would require that developers and developments along the waterfront pony up some money. It is, after all, in their interest and in the interest of maintaining their property values. All of the waterfront developments, and many of the luxury developments inland, tout the Water Taxi as an amenity. But if this amenity remains as fickle as it has been this year, that is hardly a selling point. Some developments, such as the Edge and Northside Piers, have the advantage of being located near public transportation. Others, such as Shaeffer and Domino (and to a fair extent LIC for downtown commuters) are not. But all of the waterfront developments (as well as developments in Red Hook, DUMBO and Brooklyn Bridge Park) stand to benefit from an affordable and reliable water taxi service. And so far, none of them has (publicly, at least) stepped up to the plate.

Until they do step up, its clear that the future of the NY Water Taxi is as a waterborne limousine service for a dozen or two commuters from upriver. At least until those subsidies expire in April.

In their ongoing series on commuting in NYC, the Times took the L train today (“don’t necessarily believe what you read… the lighted platform signs announcing the minutes until the next train’s arrival have been known to be wrong”). (Previously, they took a ride on the G train (“…like that unwanted drunk uncle everyone has) and the Water Taxi (where people have “an unusually fond attachment to their daily commute…”).

Today’s Times looks back fondly on the cult of personality that was Rudy Giuliani’s City Hall.

As President, Giuliani would embrace all of the worst traits of George W. The difference being that Rudy would bring a new level of competence to the vindictiveness, pettiness and toadying that has become the legacy of the past 7 years.