Celebrating Community
When the city unleashes a rezoning and its accompanying host of contentious public review meetings on a neighborhood, seldom does anything stop it. A coalition of local grassroots organizations led by Voice of Gowanus managed to do so temporarily by suing the city and preventing it from triggering the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), a seven-month path leading to […]
In early July, contractors for the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) dug up a section of Beard Street east of Van Brunt Street, prompting speculation as to whether the project (marked as a “sewer repair” on the adjacent no-parking sign) signaled the beginning of a new effort to mitigate the persistent flooding just down the road at the Richards Street […]
Two electric generating stations on six power barges, floating along the shoreline of Gowanus and Sunset Park, are looking to be replaced and updated by 2024. Collectively they provide enough energy between one and 1.5 million residential customers in Brooklyn. The barges continued operating during Superstorm Sandy in 2012 and were only offline for two hours, due personnel evacuations, according […]
It’s official – preparation is underway, beginning July 8, for remedial action that’ll address contamination related to the Citizens former Manufactured Gas Plant (MGP) site under New York’s MGP Program. The site is six acres in size and is composed of two adjoining parcels owned by the City. The site formerly included a third parcel, located at 459 Smith Street, […]
Gowanus Canal Community Advisory Group (CAG) members received updates from government and city agencies at the general monthly meeting, held November 27. The biggest surprise involved a last minute request by the NYC DEP to substitute a giant tunnel, instead of the planned sewage retention tanks ordered by the EPA, to capture raw sewage that now is dumped into the […]
The Red Hook waterfront has been a site of gritty industrial activity for over a century. The neighbors of one lot on Beard Street, however, have had enough. “It seems like they have a lot of clients and tenants,” says David Trimble, who organizes the yearly Red Hook Crit bike race. “I would definitely like to see it cleaned up […]
If you stumbled upon a cluster of decapitated snakes in a park, what would you do? This bizarre question confronted Brooklyn Bridge Park Boathouse (BBPB) volunteers on a cleanup day at Valentino Pier on Saturday morning, May 6. The beach cleaners found around five to seven lifeless – and headless – snakes on the rocks just south of the pier. […]
For BGI’s summer fundraiser, it’s a good idea to come hungry. Photo by Sarah Matusek. There’s more to Brooklyn than brunch. Just ask Brooklyn Greenway Initiative, whose annual summer fundraiser, Brooklyn Waterfront Tastes, combines the boozy weekend meal with bicycles and grassroots activism. In its thirteenth year, BGI’s brunch-tasting event lucked out with a day of sunshine and drew a […]
The saga of the Red Hook ballfields began in March 2012, when the NYC Parks Department hurriedly shut fields 5-8 because of suspected lead contamination. Topsoil was replaced and the fields were back in operation in time for an abbreviated little league and softball schedule. This was the direct result of an extensive USA Today report that identified hundreds of […]
There has never been more uncertainty about the future of our federal government in my lifetime, than right now. In 1980 Ronald Reagan gave an inaugural address that included the phrase, “government is not the solution, it is the problem.” That same speech also included a very powerful, upbeat message, as follows: “I believe we, the Americans of today, are […]