Bill Murray tours the creek; library opening delayed; early voting tomorrow; Naplatarski launches campaign
Also, clean-up work complete at "Greenpoint Marina"
East & Creek, the Greenpoint newsletter | No. 46
What’s up in Greenpoint?
— environment —
Bill Murray and Jimmy Kimmel went on a canoe tour of Newtown Creek this week, and learned a thing or two about combined sewer overflow. (Really.) The bits honestly aren’t that fresh, but the message about environmental stewardship is first-rate.
[NOTE: The original version of this newsletter said that it was Jimmy Fallon who had toured the creek. It was Jimmy Kimmel. e&c regrets the silly, sill error. Jimmies, forgive e&c.]
Now as far as far as “news,” the state’s Dept. of Environmental Conservation announced this week that a voluntary brownfield clean-up had completed at the waterfront site known as “Greenpoint Marina.” The remediation work, which began earlier this year, targeted groundwater, soil, and soil vapor contaminants including petroleum products, heavy metals, and other multisyllabic pollutants.
Left untouched by the environmental work was a former coal silo on the site — known to most locals as some variation on “That Skull Thing.”
Some history from the DEC: “The Site was previously used as a shipyard beginning in 1887, a machine shop between 1905 and 1916, milling between 1922 and 2005, and coal storage in 1965. It was previously occupied by five separate buildings which were destroyed by fire in 2006.”
The site is owned by Pearl Realty, which owns other pieces of the former Greenpoint Terminal. No permits for future development at “Greenpoint Marina” have been filed yet with the Dept. of Buildings.
— politics —
Early voting begins on Saturday for this year’s November 5 election. (Which, yes, there is an election coming up and, also, yes, we have early voting now.) Most Greenpointers can vote early at 195 Graham Ave in Williamsburg — though you can check here, via the city’s Board of Elections, just to be sure. Ballots will include the general election for Public Advocate, several judicial elections, and five extremely text-heavy proposed changes to the city’s charter.
This newsletter recommends saving at least a minute or two for quiet study and contemplation before making the trip down to your polling location.
And onto the 2020 elections! Kristina Naplatarski, a Greenpoint native and staffer for councilmember Antonio Reynoso, launched her candidacy on Wednesday for the female district leader position within Brooklyn’s 50th assembly district. The volunteer role within the Brooklyn Democratic Party is, importantly, not a position in government; it has been held by Linda Minucci since 1984.
The first-time candidate described several key issues for her campaign, including housing costs, gentrification, development, environmental injustice, congestion, and the need for more parks. Naplatarski also provided some biographical details: avid, trained boxer, raised by a teacher-and-community-activist mother and a Bulgarian-immigrant-and-unionized-ironworker father in Greenpoint. She also decried Minucci’s “no-show” reputation, to applause.
And on Tuesday, New York State Assembly member Joe Lentol kicked off his re-election campaign, ahead of his first contest primary in nearly a decade. Emily Gallagher announced her candidacy last month.
— etc —
The late fees are going to be tremendous: “The completion date of the new Greenpoint Library has once again been pushed back due to construction delays and is now expected to open early in the new year. The new $20.8 million library’s original anticipated completion date was December 2018, but due unforeseen construction issues, it has been continuously pushed back further and further — first to summer 2019, then to fall 2019 and now to early 2020.” (Greenpoint Post’s Allie Griffin)
Scary stuff: “An annual horror film festival kicks off in Greenpoint Thursday that features eight days of more than 60 movie screenings, talks and events. FEARnyc will run from Oct. 24 through Halloween, Oct. 31 at Film Noir Cinema, located at 22 Meserole Ave.” (Greenpoint Post’s Allie Griffin)
Your Subway Weekender
G - Normal service.
L - “Normal” slow-down service.
Thus concludes this October 25, 2019 edition of East & Creek, the twice-weekly newsletter about Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Read the full archives here.
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See ya around the neighb,
Jon Hanrahan
Author, e&c