Good morning to readers old and new — and welcome to this August 2, 2019 edition of East & Creek, the Greenpoint newsletter.
Demolition begins at Bayside, more than a decade after city’s original park proposal
Trash in the foreground and, in the background, one of the remaining Bayside tanks. (photo by e&c)
For years the Bayside tanks, relics of Greenpoint’s petroleum-industry past, rusted in place while local residents anticipated the area’s transformation into long-promised park space. The tanks began to tumble last week as demolition crews peeled down the empty metal hulls, clearing the land for eventual development into an expanded Bushwick Inlet Park.
This week’s work was at least a decade-and-a-half in the making. In its original 2004 proposal to rezone parts of Greenpoint and Williamsburg, the Dept. of City Planning wrote that the Bayside site, as well as the land under the blue-and-white CitiStorage warehouse and other parcels along the waterfront, should be “designated as public parks.” Other documents related to the rezoning, which the City Council approved in 2006, describe the imagined waterfront park’s role in the city’s bid for the 2012 Olympics.
Demolition on the site began last month and is expected to conclude by the end of the year, according to Anessa Hodgson, a spokesperson for the Dept. of Parks and Recreation. The city purchased the parcel from the Bayside Fuel Oil Depot Corporation in 2016.
During a May community meeting, the Parks Department’s Director of North Brooklyn Parks, Mary Salig, said that the CitiStorage warehouse’s current tenant will vacate the now-city-owned property early next year. Demolition of the warehouse will begin thereafter.
An early-morning jogger crosses the entrance to the Bayside site on Friday. (photo by e&c)
What else is up in Greenpoint?
Two new green spaces are now open in Greenpoint: the (somewhat delayed) Newtown Barge Park and a public area adjacent to the Greenpoint ferry landing. (Brooklyn Daily Eagle’s Lore Croghan)
As e&c has previously reported, pending litigation involving the present and likely-future owners of the old NuHart plastics factory will indefinitely delay planned residential development at the site. Now Bedford + Bowery has the messy legal details, as well as a write-up of this Monday’s community meeting concerning the property’s eventual environmental remediation. (Bedford + Bowery’s Jo Corona)
Testing by the city’s Dept. of Education found lead paint in over 900 New York City elementary school classrooms, including classrooms in Greenpoint’s PS 31, PS 34 and PS 110. One local pol’s reaction: “What the hell, @NYCSchools?” (Chalkbeat’s Reema Amin, Alex Zimmerman and Christina Veiga)
About 200 firefighters and EMS spent Thursday morning battling a fire in a restaurant supply warehouse on Monitor St, near Norman Ave. Five firefighters sustained minor injuries. (WABC’s Candace McCowan)
A manhole caught fire and another spewed smoke at the intersection of Noble St and Franklin Ave on Wednesday afternoon. A manhole exploded less than a block away last week. (Patch’s Anna Quinn)
Two of Greenpoint’s representatives in the state legislature, Assemblyman Joseph Lentol and Senator Julia Salazar, have scheduled a community forum for August 15 to discuss the upcoming legislative session.
A makgeolli brewery will likely open later this year on Dupont Street; the space will include space for production as well as a taproom devoted to the Korean rice liquor. (Greenpointers)
Amazon has its sights on a property in Maspeth, just across Newtown Creek in Queens. One local advocate worries, “This will be a gigantic magnification of truck traffic in residential areas that are already very sensitive to heavy truck traffic.” (QNS’s Bill Parry)
An abandoned van with New Jersey plates accumulated parking tickets for a year across the street from John Ericsson Middle School, before being towed by the NYPD on Wednesday. (Greenpointers)
Meanwhile in New York City…
Protesters interrupted the Democratic debates on Wednesday to call on Mayor de Blasio to fire the NYPD officer whose chokehold led to Eric Garner’s death five years ago. A non-binding verdict from the NYPD regarding the officer is expected today. (Gothamist’s Zach Schonfeld)
Protesters continue to demand that detainees at the Brooklyn Detention Complex in Boerum Hill have access to cold water, cold showers and more fans. The Daily Eagle reports: “[Councilmember Brad] Lander said that despite the fact that jail showers should run cold water during a heat wave, a shower his team tested was running scalding-hot water when they visited. The water jugs in common spaces were filled with warm water, he added.” (Brooklyn Daily Eagle’s Noah Goldberg)
Revel, whose blue electric scooters have become a common sight in parts of Brooklyn and Queens, is facing its first personal injury lawsuit. (Streetsblog’s Julianne Cuba)
And last, a report from outside of the tri-state area, on the final edition of a tiny newspaper in northern Minnesota: “The final issue included an article about the future of the farmers’ oil co-op now that its general manager had resigned. There was an article about low-interest federal loans for farmers affected by natural disasters. There was an ad inviting readers to the 85th Birthday Open House in honor of a woman named Ione Carlson. And the Warroad High School prom king and prom queen were on the front page, just below the fold.” (New York Times’ Richard Fausset)
Your Subway Weekender
G - Normal service.
L - “Normal” slowdown service; no service between Broadway Junction and Lorimer St between midnight and 5 a.m.
Thus concludes this August 2, 2019 edition of East & Creek, the twice-weekly newsletter about Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Read the full archives here.
If you like what you’re reading, do this newsletter a solid and share it with a friend.
If you don’t like what you’re reading — or if you have any comments or questions — send an email to eastandcreek@substack.com.
See ya around the neighb,
Jon Hanrahan
Author, e&c