The Red Hook Recreation Center has closed indefinitely as Hurricane Ida which hit Red Hook in early September left the recreation center with a damaged boiler.
I called the Parks Department but they weren’t able to give me much information on the situation and told me that the Recreation Center has no hot water and they’re not sure how long it will have to remain closed.
Jo Goldfarb, the director of communications at BASIS Independent Brooklyn (the school is located just a block away from the Red Hook Recreation Center) said, “Staff has been reassigned to Sunset Park Rec Center ‘indefinitely’ and the facility will not be used for testing/vaccinations.”
“While the Rec Center is not filled as it was pre-pandemic days, those who do use it most are elderly residents of the houses who have shared they will not be able to get over to Sunset Park,” Goldfarb said. “This will close off their only reliable, affordable way to exercise daily in Red Hook, particularly now that the track has closed down.”
The Sunset Park Recreation Center is located at 4200 7th Ave., which is 2.6 miles away from the Red Hook Recreation Center, so it may be difficult (especially for senior citizens) to get there during the winter.
“I have health issues [diabetes and hypertension] so I relied on the Rec Center to get exercise for my health,” said David Small, a Red Hook resident. “It’s two buses plus walking to get to the Sunset Park Rec Center so it’s tough to get there. It feels like everything in the neighborhood is under construction and the key thing is we need to start getting results; we know the boiler is broken but that happened months ago, so when will this be open again?”
Small attended a virtual council oversight hearing on access to recreational programs on December 7th, explained his situation, and asked for a timeline for the repairs on the boiler. Councilman Peter Koo said he would forward Small’s question to the Parks Department and get back to him via email.
Jacqui Painter, a former District 38 council candidate and Red Hook resident also spoke at the hearing, saying “It’s extremely sad that the city isn’t putting in the money to invest in a low income community like Red Hook. In the past two years because of construction Red Hook has lost over 400 trees, our outdoor parks have been closed because of toxic soil levels and we have last-mile trucking facilities popping up all throughout the neighborhood. We need this recreation center now more than ever.”
Painter also said she’s heard from the Parks Department that there isn’t enough money to fix the boiler and that they’ve found additional damage from the flooding that needs to be fixed.
Councilman Robert Holden called for a member of the Parks Department to give Small and Painter answers during the hearing but no one from the Parks Department responded. As of now, a timeline for the Red Hook Recreation Center remains unclear. —Brian Abate
Last-Mile Warehouse Update
There aren’t too many updates regarding the last-mile warehouses in Red Hook, but Community Board 7 met on November 30th to discuss some of the issues they could cause and looked at case studies in other cities.
One of the case studies is a video about Fontana, California, which, like Red Hook, is a hub for last-mile warehouses. Jim Tampakis of Tamco Mechanical also sent me the same video. For years he has been a voice for Red Hook, pushing for last-mile warehouses to use the waterways and other green modes of transportation and warning of problems that could stem from the facilities which are opening up in the neighborhood.
Fontana has more than 50 warehouses in the city, including massive Amazon and UPS facilities near the local school. Red Hook is facing the imminent opening of five or six last mile warehouses.
One positive development is that Amazon officials have been in contact and working with Jo Goldfarb, the director of communications at BASIS Independent Brooklyn. She says that Amazon has not had trucks or other vehicles on the street when kids are arriving at or leaving school.
However, there are also health concerns. Places like Fontana and Red Hook have been called “diesel death zones.” On average, 10 percent of New Yorkers have asthma, but 25 percent of children in Red Hook have asthma and the increase in last-mile warehouses may lead to even higher asthma rates.
Right now, Red Hook residents don’t have a choice in the matter as construction of massive facilities continues “as-of-right,” which means companies like Amazon are entitled to build these massive facilities in the neighborhood.
It’s very important that local leaders like Tampakis and Goldfarb speak up about these problems and push for solutions that will help the neighborhood because these warehouses are here to stay and there will likely be even more of them coming to Red Hook in the near future.—Brian Abate
