Tag: waterfront

East River Ferry Service Exceeds Expectations

The ferry service that the city started in June has attracted twice as many riders as its planners had expected. On sunny weekends, it has been so popular with tourists and wandering residents that some boats have been too full to take on everybody waiting on the piers in Brooklyn.

The article doesn’t say that it is profitable (and reading between the lines, it certainly isn’t), but the East River Ferry has been a game changer. I’ve commuted intermittently since the NY Water Taxi first started service, but, as I’ve said before, the East River Ferry is a game changer. Not only can I commute on the ferry (from the Northside, no less), but I can now take the ferry midday when I’m working from home or just need to get home early. The number of families using the ferry, and the number of commuters using the ferry for intra-borough travel has been substantial.

Where’s Our Park?

The “Where’s Our Park?” protest event, organized by a handful of North Brooklyn community groups, was timed to coincide with the city-sponsored “It’s My Park Day” on Saturday, where more than 5,000 volunteers engaged in parks improvement projects citywide.

Instead, parks advocates marched from the N. Ninth Street soccer fields — the first and only working recreational field at Bushwick Inlet — up Kent Avenue to Quay Street, the site of a long-delayed museum.

Good quotes, too.

Douglaston to Develop Third Toll Tower

10/14/2011 | Comment

The Wall Street Journal (via Brownstoner) reports that Douglaston Development, the developer of the Edge condos, has bought a vacant tower site next door at Toll Brother’s Northside Piers development. Douglaston plans to erect a 40-story luxury rental on the site.

Both Douglaston and Toll have sites for third towers on their properties – Douglaston has used its site to host the Brooklyn Flea and Smorgasburg, while the Toll site has sat vacant. The deal – which has been rumored for some months now – means that Northside Piers will be completed, albeit with rentals instead of condos and Douglaston instead of Toll as the developer (FXFowle, which designed the other Northside towers, will remain as the architect for the rental tower).

What is not clear is what this means in terms of affordable (inclusionary) housing. L&M Development Partners, which built the existing affordable housing at the Palmers Dock portion of Northside Piers, is listed as a partner with Douglaston in the new development. I don’t know if Toll has already built the required 20% affordable housing for the new tower, or if L&M will be developing it for Douglaston. L&M is building a new ground-up affordable project on Broadway and Kent, so conceivably that could represent an offsite component of the required inclusionary housing.

As Brownstoner notes, this is something of a bombshell. It is a bullish move on Douglaston’s part, and an indication of the relative strength of the Williamsburg rental market (particularly on the waterfront), but at the same time, the fact that neither Toll nor Douglaston is interested in condos has to be a bearish indicator.

Ignoring the Waterfront That We Have

Tom Stoelker in The Architects Newspaper:

Now that Michael Marrella, who guided the massive waterfront plan, Vision 2020, into being last spring, has been bumped up to Director of Waterfront and Open Space Planning Division, he has miles and miles of shoreline to divvy up between two very different users—the public and industry. Charged with both implementing public access to the water for quality of life uses while also supporting a working waterfront, Marella made his position clear: “We’re not looking to relocate or displace industrial uses.”

The article notes that Con Ed is close to a deal with Brooklyn Bridge Park that will allow the Park to acquire a 5-acre site adjacent to the Con Ed plant in Dumbo. No mention is made of the two Con Ed-owned locations in Williamsburg – the transformer station to the south of 184 Kent and the former BRT power plan site just south of Division. Also not mentioned is why the City doesn’t development the parkland it has already created at Bushwick Inlet and along the Greenpoint waterfront, or why they City doesn’t develop land it already owns (and does not use for industrial purposes) like that at “Williamsburg Bridge Park”.

Concert Attendees Claim There Was No “Widespread Panic” In Williamsburg Last Saturday

One attendee who admittedly doesn’t really like the band, but was there sober and with her husband, told us: “Drug nightmare? I didn’t see any of that at the concert (only the green stuff — and I wouldn’t call it a nightmare). On the contrary, I’ve never been to such a large gathering [with so much alcohol] without there being fights or mayhem. The crowd wasn’t too big, and everybody was just grooving and having a good time. I love those damn WP hippies.”

Pretty much my experience too. What happened on North 7th Street sucked. The question is, was it the norm or the exception?

Drug Orgies on the Northside

09/21/2011 | 1 Comment

It would be hard to do, but in case you missed it, a resident of North 7th Street has posted videos of people huffing nitrous on North 7th Street after last Saturday’s Widespread Panic concert. I’d heard about these videos last night, but hadn’t seen them until just now. While I wouldn’t call this a drug orgy or any of the other hyperbole being thrown around, it is an inexcusable mess.

So – a few thoughts on this:

One, it sucks that this happened. Sucks for the resident(s), sucks for OSA, sucks for the NYPD and sucks for the concerts.

Two, this was exactly the opposite of my experience only one block to the north. I was at the concert that night – the first time I’d been to an OSA waterfront concert – and was generally impressed by the efficiency and professionalism of the security inside, the number of cops outside and the comportment of the crowd. I happened to leave via North 8th Street, where it was relatively quiet and there was a large police presence. The crowd was orderly and by no means out of hand (I left about half an hour after the show, so the throngs had moved on by that point), and the cops kept people moving out of the area. There were a lot of concertgoers in the bar I went to after, and all were well behaved. More or less more or less, the crowd behavior that evening was what I would expect from a post-Dead, post-hippie jam band’s followers (of which I am not one).

Three, I remember this coming up earlier in the year – residents complaining about people selling hits of nitrous out of the trunk of their cars after last year’s concerts – and thinking “Who the hell does that?”. Unfortunately, now I know.

And in case you did miss it, there is a lot more on this at various sites already (with plenty of comments):

From The New York Shitty Inbox: Saturday Night [NYShitty was there first]
These Widespread Panic Fans Aren’t Sucking On Balloons Because They’re Feeling Festive [Voice]
Video: People Casually Doing Nitrous On the Street in Williamsburg After Jam Band Show [Voice]
Video: Nitrous Oxide-Fueled Fans Terrorize Williamsburg Locals [Gothamist]
“POST-CONCERT DRUG ORGY MOB NIGHTMARE” AT WILLIAMSBURG WATERFRONT [Free Williamsburg]
Jam Band Show Turned Williamsburg Into Druggy Whippet Wonderland [NY Mag]
Post-concert open-air drug market in Williamsburg! [Brooklyn Paper]
Widespread Panic Concert Causes ‘Mayhem’ In Williamsburg (VIDEO) [yes, even HuffPo has reaggregated it]

Nü Williamsburg

Erik Stinson in The Atlantic:

Nü Williamsburg dates back to a 2005 change to zoning laws allowing for the construction of new residential units in the areas of North, South, and East Williamsburg, semi-defined divisions of the sprawling Brooklyn neighborhood. In 2008, the housing boom busted, but, slowly, many of the then-new projects are being completed and filled.

But why does Nü Williamsburg need an umlaut?