Tag: waterfront

Reversal on Plans for Williamsburg Park

07/20/2011 | 1 Comment

The Daily News reports today that the City is reneging on one of the key components of the 2005 Greenpoint/Williamsburg rezoning – the 28-acre Bushwick Inlet Park. The park – which would straddle Greenpoint and Williamsburg – was the centerpiece of the City’s open space plan under the rezoning.

In the six years since the rezoning, the City has acquired less than a third of the property that was to make up the park. In a letter to one of the property owners on the site, the Parks Department is now saying that it has “no schedule for the acquisition of the site” (a position which was apparently reiterated by other City officials in a meeting with the Community Advisory Board last week).

In the 2005 rezoning, the City promised that it would add roughly 38 acres to North Brooklyn. Six years – and thousands of new housing units – later, less than 3 acres of that is actual, usable open space. The rest is 35 acres of broken promises and, ultimately, a ruined rezoning.

Rose Plaza Now a Conversion?

07/01/2011 | Comment

rose-plaza.jpg

Rose Plaza: Not Coming Soon to a Waterfront Near You??

Brownstoner reports this morning that 484 Kent Avenue has a DOB permit to convert the top two floors of the building to 30 residential units. The ground floor will remain as warehouse use.

Presumably, this means that the grand plans for Rose Plaza – and its 240 affordable housing units – aren’t going to come to fruition anytime soon. If that’s the case, that is the second affordable housing project in a week to put an affordable housing promise on long-term hiatus.

Sizing Up the East River Ferry

06/20/2011 | 4 Comments

Like everyone else in the known universe (or so it seems), I’ve been riding the East River Ferry a lot this week. I was a long-time user of the NY Water Taxi, which ran the East River commuter route until the beginning of May1, and I plan on using the ferry when I can to commute to and from work.

For the most part, the new ferry service has been great. Yes, the schedule is a complete mess. And, at least in the evening or on weekends, you might have to wait for a second boat before you get on. But that is a largely a function of the price of the ferry for the first two weeks (FREE) – I assume that once people actually have to pay to ride the ferry that ridership will decrease (hopefully not too much, but at least enough to get rid of the lines and get the boats back on schedule).

But what about the long-term prospects for the East River Ferry Service? Some people are skeptical. And rightly so, in the macro sense (as I’ve said many times before). Ferry service will not be truly viable until it is part of the larger mass transit system – i.e., until it has the same fare structure as buses and subways, and it provides a free transfer to the buses and subways. Until that happens, intra-city ferry service will only draw a small percentage of daily commuters between Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan.

But while I agree with Second Avenue Sagas in the macro sense, I think they are missing another part of the big picture here. The new East River Ferry service is is more than just an incremental step forward. It actually does a hell of a lot to reduce the friction of intra-city ferry service, and that could draw in passengers from well beyond the waterfront developments that now line the Williamsburg and Long Island City shore.

The East River Ferry makes a number of substantial changes to past East River commuter service:

  • regular service throughout the day, vs. two or three trips in the morning and the same in the evening
  • 20-minute peak-time headway, vs. one hour headway
  • midtown shuttle bus service
  • new ferry stops at North 6th Street (Northside) and India Street (Greenpoint)

Prior to the new service, ferry travel was pretty much a non-starter for anyone living north of Grand Street, and certainly for residents of Greenpoint. Now, many residents of Greenpoint and the Northside can walk to a ferry in well under 10 minutes (not just the residents of the waterfront condos, but the rest of us). Plus, the increased frequency means that commuters are less beholden to a schedule – with 7 to 10 boats in the morning and evening rush, the penalty for missing a boat is much less severe.

Now, people who work in midtown can use the free shuttle bus to get to the center of the island. And people who live in North Brooklyn and work in DUMBO now have a much quicker and more pleasant way to get to work.

All of this, as I said, reduces the friction of ferry service. And that, in turn, could change the way people move around the city. Anecdotally, I’ve seen this from a number of people. A neighbor who works at Broadway in the 30s, who is taking the ferry and free shuttle bus, and will probably continue to do so when the paid service starts. A couple of women on the bus, who are excited to have an alternative to the L train. Co-workers who can now get from Northside to Lower Manhattan without going near the L train.

In fact, the biggest selling point for the ferry might just be the L train. For a lot of people, avoiding that train at least once a day is worth an extra $2.00 or so. (If the L train is the biggest selling point, the G train is a close second – for Greenpoint residents who work in Midtown, life just got a whole lot better.)

Yes, most of this happens because of city subsidies (but we subsidize train and bus service too). And none of this in and of itself changes the systemic problems of making (unsubsidized, stand-alone) ferry service viable in the long term. But the City has made an important move here – its investment in the ferry system finally breaks the chicken-and-egg cycle that the Water Taxi was stuck in. As a result, ferries are now a sensible commuting option for a lot more residents of Brooklyn and Queens. Which, in turn, could make ferry service profitable and therefore viable in the long term.

If that turns out to be the case, I want to a put in a plug for a Houston Street stop next (with a free shuttle bus, please).

1. Contrary to what the Brooklyn Paper reports, service on the Water Taxi ended last month, not in 2009.↩

Edge Selling More Units

The Edge has “sold” more units in the first 5 months of 2011 than any single development sold in all of 2010.

Yes, the Edge has more units to sell than any single development on the market in 2010, but the fact that they are “selling” (signing contracts, really, but that is the PR standard, so let’s go with it) units at a pace of 30+ per month is yet another sign of a relatively strong market in North Brooklyn. Or maybe it just reinforces the old real estate adage – “location, location, location” – something the Edge also has more of than just about any other development on the market.

Bushwick Inlet Park Update

05/26/2011 | Comment

BIP plan

Bushwick Inlet Park – Someday.


Curbed has a post today headlined “Long-Delayed Bushwick Inlet Park Now Planning for 2012“. What they mean is that the big pile of dirt on Kent Avenue between North 9th and North 10th Streets will become the headquarters for North Brooklyn’s Parks operations will open in “winter 2012”.

Curbed mistakenly says that the “original plan, when the first phase of park construction kicked off back in 2009 after several delays, was for the whole 28-acre project to be done this summer”. Actually, the plan was only to have this little building completed by this summer. But even that is not going to happen.

So this seems like a good time to check in on the status of Bushwick Inlet “Park”. You might remember that it was the major open space concession in the 2005 rezoning of Greenpoint and Williamsburg – a 28-acre waterfront park for two neighborhoods that historically ranked near the bottom in terms of open space. Bushwick Inlet Park represents over three-quarters of the new park space promised under the 2005 rezoning. That rezoning passed six years ago this month. Hundreds of new apartments have been constructed on the waterfront at the Edge and Northside Piers. Thousands of new apartments have been constructed on sites inland from the waterfront.

So how is this jewel of the North Brooklyn waterfront coming along?

We have a soccer field. It’s a very nice soccer field, but it is not a 28-acre soccer field.

There is a big pile of dirt where the Parks headquarters will someday be, and that project is actively under construction. Of course that headquarters was supposed to “be” this summer. Instead, it is now “on schedule” for completion in winter 2012. In other words, it is about a year and a half behind schedule.

Someday, that soccer field will look out on a waterfront esplanade, a restaurant and a pier-like structure. But right now it looks out on a chain link fence, and the esplanade is but a promise.

That’s the parcel between North 9th and North 10th Streets, which accounts for about 15% (4.1 acres) of the promised park.

There is less progress on the other 24 acres. To start with, the City doesn’t own most of that land – all they’ve managed to acquire is the 1.9-acre former Sanitation lot on Kent between North 11th and North 12th. The CitiStorage site (6.8 acres between North 10th and North 12th), the Bayside Fuel Oil site (7.3 acres between North 12th and North 14th) and the Motiva site (2.4 acres along Quay Street) are still privately owned.* Even if they were acquired today, it would take the City many years and many millions of dollars to clean them up and turn them into a park.

Yes, times are tough and the budgets are tight. But the 2005 rezoning did come with an explicit promise – the private sector would build a lot of apartments, and the City would build some parks and open space. The private sector has kept up its end of the bargain – according to the US Census, about 2,200 people were added to the census tracts covered by the rezoning area between 2000 and 2010 (and many more units have come online in the last year). The City has not kept up its end of the bargain – having turned only 3.1 acres of Bushwick Inlet Park into actual, usable parkland.

*If you’re doing the math, all that only adds up to 22.5 acres. There is an additional 5.5 acres or so taken up by the streets between these various lots. Presumably they are City-owned, but they aren’t park either. The East River State Park, between North 7th and North 9th, is another 6 acres or so, but is not included in these numbers.

New East River Ferry Launches June 13

05/26/2011 | Comment

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East River ferry service map


As reported in the Brooklyn Paper this morning (and on Brownstoner), the new East River ferry service is set to begin service in mid June.

I met with the operators of the new service a week or so ago, and am very excited about the new service. As you may have guessed, I have been a pretty frequent rider on the former Water Taxi service. The service that NY Waterway, the new operator of the route, will be implementing in two and half weeks will be a vast improvement over the Water Taxi service (thanks in large measure to city subsidies). Instead of two or three boats in the morning and two or three boats in the afternoon, the Waterway service will run continuously from 7 in the morning to 8 at night. And instead of an hourly schedule at each stop, the new service will have boats departing every 20 minutes during peak commuting hours and every 30 minutes other times.

Add in new ferry stops at North 6th Street and India Street, and all of a sudden ferry service on the East River is a commuter service on the city model, rather than the suburban model. No longer will you have to make the 8:30 boat or risk an hour wait for the next boat (or a long walk back to the J train!). The additional stops on the Northside and in Greenpoint will bring the ferry service closer to a lot more commuters. And for people commuting to midtown, there will be a shuttle bus running in a loop from 34th to 42nd Street, so there is the prospect of a single-fare ride.

Another bonus for residents of Long Island City and north Brooklyn is the weekend service, which will also run on a half-hour schedule and will include one-boat service to Governor’s Island!

Things still won’t be perfect, though. For most commuters, taking the ferry will mean two fares – until the MTA and the City figures out how to do MetroCard transfers from the ferry to the buses and subways, commuting by ferry will only be viable for people who live and work close to the ferry stops (on the other hand, if you live in northern Williamsburg or Greenpoint and work in DUMBO, you now have a pretty direct commute, and if you live in Greenpoint and work in Midtown, you could conceivably kiss the G train goodbye). I’m also concerned that NY Waterway’s bike policy will make it harder for people to commute on two wheels.

And even with city subsidies, the service is not cheap. A discounted fare will run you about $4, which is a bit less than the Water Taxi charged, but still more the twice the cost of a subway fare with a monthly MetroCard. This – and the transfer issue – is something that the city needs to come to grips if it wants intra-city commuter ferry to work.

But all in all, the changes coming with the new NY Waterway service are very good first steps to making that kind of service a reality.

Update: Had an email from the ferry folk saying that service will start “mid June”, not on the 13th. The sooner the better.

The Day the Music Was Turned Down (But Not Really)

05/04/2011 | 2 Comments

Apparently last night’s CB1 Parks Committee was a bit of a doozy (Aaron Short went so I didn’t have to!). In an advisory vote, the committee recommended that the number of concerts be cut by a third and that attendance at each concert be cut by about 25% (from 6,500 to 5,000 people). Since the Open Space Alliance has already booked 15 shows for the summer, and since the concerts are held on State park land (which the local CB1 has no jurisdiction over), this vote won’t change anything. It may be a symbolic gesture, but it’s pretty clear that some people are not too happy with the concerts or with OSA.

City Sues Gutman Over Street-Blocking Fence

The City is suing Joshua Gutman, owner of the former Greenpoint Terminal Market site, over the construction of fences blocking city streets that are supposed to provide access to the waterfront.

the site’s owner, Joshua Guttman, […] built two fences in 2009, even though he knew they were on a public street, ignoring the city’s repeated requests to remove them… [Councilman Steve] Levin had asked Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan to have workers tear the fence down — but the city chose to fight in court in order to keep the street open in perpetuity.

This is the same part of the same property that has multiple unresolved fines and violations over the owner’s failure to maintain the bulkheads along the waterfront. And part of the same property that partially burned down in a massive fire in April, 2006. And part of the same property that caused the closing of American Playground on Noble Street earlier this year when parts of a building started falling onto the playground.

Clearly we are dealing with a very civic-minded ownership here.