So normally this newsletter tries to limit itself to Greenpoint — it’s only one newsletter, after all — but for this July 12, 2019 edition of East & Creek, a brief detour south:
e&c reports: A Few Hyper-Preliminary Pseudo-Details on a Likely Development in Williamsburg
The team behind Williamsburg’s Domino Sugar mega-project will purchase in coming months the waterfront “ConEd site” and plans to develop the area with housing, open space, and a new YMCA facility, e&c learned in a preliminary town hall meeting held on Wednesday.
The ConEd site, highlighted in yellow. (e&c/Google Maps)
The project is expected to include a level of residential density similar to that of the Domino Sugar site, according to Two Trees CEO Jed Walentas. The eventual owners anticipate a years-long development process, including rezoning, a lengthy land-use review process, and further opportunities for public comment. Few, if any, aspects of the project are certain; Two Trees has not yet hired an architect.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Walentas and landscape architect Lisa Switkin gathered ideas from community members for open space at the water’s edge that would connect, through Grand Ferry Park, to the recently-opened Domino Park.
Community members as well as Switkin and Walentas indicated an interest in a more naturalistic approach at the new site. Potential natural features suggested by community members as well as Switkin and Walentas included a soft waterfront edge, salt marsh–type vegetation, and naturalistic play spaces for children and adults. Walentas was receptive to community members’ suggestion that the city close River St to car traffic.
The land, which Con Edison once used to store oil, has already been environmentally remediated. Brownstoner reported earlier this week that the purchase is likely to be complete by this fall.
What’s up in Greenpoint?
There have been a few recent openings and closings on Manhattan Ave. (Greenpointers)
Needless to say, torrential rains Thursday evening caused Greenpointers’ raw sewage to cascade into Newtown Creek and the East River. That’s the magic of combined sewer overflow, friends and neighbors!
A sinister hedge of poison ivy at intersection of the Pulaski Bridge and Jackson Ave in Queens was reportedly removed yesterday. Still, please be careful what urban vegetation you rub up against on your daily commute. (Gothamist)
Meanwhile in New York City…
The next big political battle in Queens (once the current one, the District Attorney election, ends…) may be over the massive Sunnyside Yards. (City Limits)
We’ve heard from the YIMBYs (and some NIMBYs) regarding a proposed homeless shelter in Park Slope. Next up: investigative journalists and citizen watchdogs, who have found that the Park Slope shelter is expected to cost much more than shelters built elsewhere in the city. (Gothamist)
You may have already seen this one: Prior to his arrest last weekend for child sex-trafficking, Jeffrey Epstein was allowed to skip 34 mandated check-ins with the NYPD’s Sex Offender Monitoring Unit — by the NYPD. (New York Post)
A thousand cyclists and activists staged a “die-in” protest at Washington Square Park on Tuesday, chanting “stop killing us” and appealing to Mayor de Blasio, “Do your fucking job,” after an alarming rise this year in pedestrian and cyclist deaths in New York City. (Streetsblog)
According to a new report, just 16 percent of New Yorkers of color have access to a Citi Bike bike-share station. Even worse, “nearly 30 percent of city denizens have no access to either bike-sharing systems or the subway.” (Curbed)
But for those who live in the transit-rich parts of the city, the service is slowly getting better. 80 percent of subway trains were “on-time” last month, a six-year high. (New York Post)
And just to bring it all back to Williamsburg, the two-week festival leading up to the Feast of Our Lady Mount Carmel and San Paolino di Nola has begun. On Sunday: the famous lifting of the four-ton giglio. (New York Times)
Your Subway Weekender
G - Normal service.
L - “Normal” slowdown service this weekend; beginning next Tuesday, through August 4, there will be no service between Broadway Junction and Lorimer, between midnight and 5 a.m.
Thus concludes this June 12, 2019 edition of East & Creek, the twice-weekly newsletter about Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Read the full archives here.
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See you around town,
e&c