Brooklyn 11211

Two somewhat stealthy council race announcements happened in the last week or two. First, as reported in the Brooklyn Paper, Steve Levin has thrown his hat in the ring for David Yassky’s 33d Council District seat. Levin, who is currently Assemblyman Vito Lopez’s chief of staff, joins Evan Thies (we told you he wouldn’t be the only North Brooklynite) and Joanne Simon. If there was an official announcement, I missed it (Levin also hasn’t registered with the Campaign Finance Board yet).

In the 34th CD (Diana Reyna’s district), there is finally one official candidate – Gerry Esposito, the long-time District Manager of Community Board #1. Again, a low profile – Esposito essentially announced his candidacy in a letter to Board members.

Its been a busy week or two on the local school front, with two raucous meetings on two separate issues related to two failing elementary schools.

First, a rumor surfaced last week that MS 577, which is currently housed in trailers in the playground of PS 132 (Manhattan and Metropolitan) would be relocated to PS 17 (Driggs and North 5th). Given that 17 is undersubscribed, and is not using all of its space, such a move makes some sense. It would allow overcrowded 132 (one of the neighborhood’s better-rated schools) to reclaim its playground, open a library and provide other basic services one would expect from a public elementary school. The principal of 17, needless to say, was not happy with the usurpation of his space, and mobilized parents. This all came out at a CEC meeting last week, where angry parents spoke out against the relocation of 577. The relocation of 577 has been a pressing need and, I think, a priority of the DoE. But its still not clear to me that DoE intends (or ever did intend) to move 577 in the unused space at 17.

Second, an older rumor that a charter school would be going in to the underutilized space at PS 84 (Grand and Berry) resurfaced. The principal of 84, not happy with the usurpation of her space, posted flyers alerting parents and calling a PTA meeting. As it turns out, a charter school was never planned for 84 (a fact confirmed to me by a source at DoE), but some other type of school-within-a-school might be. As presented at the PTA meeting, DoE is planning to put a K-5 “Discovery School” into 84, again, using excess space at the facility (of which there is plenty).

Both of these reactions (and they are reactionary) seem to be responses to an effort on the part of DoE to identify unused or underused school facilities. District 14 (Williamsburg and Greenpoint) is listed by DoE as a “declining enrollment” district. This has been true over the past 10 to 20 years. But the designation is based on census figures that are now almost a decade out of date, and ignores the fact that recent rezonings are projected to add 10,000 new housing units between 2005 and 2015 (that doesn’t begin to count the new housing units outside rezonings areas, such as, uh, the Southside). In the midst of these demographic crosscurrents, DoE has embarked on a “space utilization” study citywide, the goal of which is to identify underutilized spaces within schools and find appropriate educational uses to go into them. But the principals of these two failing elementary schools seem intent on keeping their schools half-empty and irrelevant.

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.

There seem to be a world of mixed messages on the 475 Kent front.

First off, I’ve heard that all of the grain has been removed the building. This removes the immediate fire hazard, though the question of operable sprinklers still remains. The “City” (not clear which agency, Office of Emergency Management, I think) is now saying that extensive modifications are required before the building can be occupied. For commercial tenants, occupancy can not occur until “all violations” have been corrected. Residential tenants will not be allowed to occupy the building until the owner files to convert the building to residential use.

The violations that need to be corrected for commercial use appear to refer to NYFD and similar violations – life safety issues that prevent the building from being used for its stated purpose (the building currently has a Certificate of Occupancy for commercial use only; it is in a residential zone, but the CO does not allow residential use). Without knowing the nature of these “violations”, its impossible to say how long it might take to correct them.

With regard to residential occupancy, things are not necessarily as bad as they sound at first blush. If the requirement is truly “filing, by owner, for conversion to a residential building status”, that is something that could happen in a matter of days or weeks, as “filing” is very different than getting an actual approval for such a conversion (as in a TCO or CO).

While all of this sounds good, it requires the owner to hire the right professionals, correct violations and make the necessary applications. (As noted yesterday, the tenants appear to be working with the owner to make some repairs.) On the other hand, the City has also announced that tenants will be allowed into the building during certain hours on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. After that, the building will be padlocked and inaccessible (to tenants) indefinitely.

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…”).