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Major Issues for District 33




Give'em L: The Need for More Subway Service to Williamsburgh

April 14, 2006

Mike Muller

Many community members and local elected officials want the transit authority to add more trains to the L train, which runs from Eighth Avenue in Manhattan to Canarsie in Brooklyn. The rising popularity of the Williamsburg area, in Brooklyn, has brought such an influx of residents that it has rendered service inadequate.

A growth in ridership of about three percent over the last six years has brought the L train over capacity, according to New York City Transit data. In addition to this current growth, last year's rezoning of Williamsburg-Greenpoint is estimated to bring at least an additional 40,000 residents in the next half decade, putting a further strain on the line.

Many commuters waiting at the Bedford Avenue station in Williamsburg, on a recent morning, said that a few times a week they have to wait before they can board, for two, or even three, trains to pass because they are so crowded. "I had to start taking the day trains, because I was always late," says Edgar Valez, 22, an office clerk. This extends farther into Brooklyn, to the Myrtle Avenue stop, where some commuters complain about the same problem, although less severe.

State Assemblymember Joseph Lentol, who represents Williamsburg and Greenpoint, recently called on Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority last week to increase service to handle the growth in population. "The trains simply do not run frequently enough to service the new larger population of Williamsburg and Greenpoint. They have also become subject to the kind of chronic lateness and slowness that result when trains are overcrowded." he said.

Neither the MTA or the Bloomberg administration have replied to requests for comment at this point.

The Tri-State Transportation Campaign, an advocacy group, called on the Department of Transportation Commissioner, Iris Weinshall, to enact a transportation study to address growing traffic and transit crowding from "skyrocketing" development in Greenpoint and Williamsburg. The group, along with community members, has been pushing for such a study since the rezoning was winding its way through the land use process. In the letter they said, "The Department of City Planning barely considered the transportation impacts of adding thousands of housing units to the area, which already features the horribly jam-packed L-train." Lentol, Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez, State Senator Martin Malave Dilan, and Council Member Diana Reyna have all endorsed the request.

The group would have the study be modeled after the Downtown Brooklyn Transportation Blueprint, which studied a broad range of transportation-related issues.

The suggestion has been rebuffed by Weinshall, who considers the growth manageable with measures already taken with the rezoning, and noted that the developments underway in Downtown Brooklyn are mainly commercial and cultural, whereas Williamsburg-Greenpoint will be mostly residential. The combination of development types generate more traffic than residential alone, she argues.

Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, wrote in support of the transportation plan last year, and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz also testified in support of an expansive transportation study.

Teresa Toro, of Community Board 1, as well as the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, testified last year that "If the transportation infrastructure serving Greenpoint and Williamsburg cannot accommodate the growth resulting from this rezoning plan, then the entire rezoning project will have been in vain and the community will once again bear the brunt of inadequate planning and responsibility on the part of the City."

Many advocates complain that transportation planning is consistently lacking in major developments, such as the traffic congestion that would result from proposed developments like the Atlantic Yards and the Yankees Stadium.





Williamsburg's Baby Bars

March 24, 2006

By Susan Sipprelle

At the Tainted Lady Lounge on Grand Avenue in Williamsburg, there are wall-to-wall paintings of bare-breasted pinup girls, a pink tequila drink called “Hedy Lamarr's Silk Stockings,” and plenty of underage patrons – most drinking milk.

Deb Parker, the bar owner and mother of an 18-month-old named Earl, started a “mommy and me” happy hour there soon after she opened the bar, so that new mothers would have a place to nurse their newborns and nurse a beer.

“We’re all vying for the same clientele,” said Parker, who believes that a kid-friendly policy helps sets her bar apart from others. “There’s no niche for just another bar.”

The Tainted Lady is a new kind of drinking establishment - one that promotes not only a wide selection of alcoholic drinks, but also ample stroller parking. And it is among half a dozen bars and lounges in the neighborhood that are actively trying to attract parents with children as customers.

While some are traditional bars trying to create a family-friendly atmosphere, others are specially designed to look and feel like a day care center, but with a liquor license so that dad can have drink while his son puts together a puzzle.

But some New Yorkers question whether welcoming kids into bars is bad news for both bars and the kids.

Local bar owners in Williamsburg say that several factors have led them to be more open to children in their businesses.

For one, the neighborhood’s demographics are changing. The 20-something artists and “hipsters” that began moving to Williamsburg a decade ago are now 30-somethings with children. According to the U.S. Census, the number of children under the age of five in New York rose 26 percent between 2000 to 2004. Brooklyn has a larger percentage of young children than the city as a whole.

It is also perfectly legal for kids to hang out with their parents in bars in New York. The New York State Liquor Authority allows persons under age 16 in establishments with alcohol licenses as long as a parent or guardian accompanies them.

In 2003, Mayor Michael Bloomberg instituted the smoking ban, which alleviated parent’s concern about exposing children to second hand smoke in bars.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, Forest Watson enjoyed a Corona at Willie Bee’s Family Lounge on Metropolitan Avenue while his two daughters - ages 3 and 9 - drank chocolate milkshakes and played with plastic trucks.

“I think it’s great, a pretty natural combination,” said Watson.

Serena Siegfried, founder of Willie Bee’s, and her husband also own a jazz club in Manhattan, but when they opened the family lounge 18 months ago, they wanted to create a place where parents and children could hang out, listen to music, and socialize together. Wille Bee’s is designed to cater primarily to children, decorated with paintings by students at PS 84 and stacks of toy bins, but it also has a selection of beer, wine, and champagne.

“It’s an incredible idea,” said Siegfried. “The best idea we’ve ever had.”

Down the street, the Laila Lounge on North 7th Street hosts “Happy Sundays” brunches for families. Roni Platner, owner of Laila and father of two young children, provides entertainment for children, so that their parents can eat, drink, talk, and shoot pool.

“It’s an opportunity for the parents to have a good time as well,” said Platner “Parents don’t have to feel bad about going to a bar with their kids.”

Brooklyn Brewery on North 11th Street has also set up its party room like a beer hall on Friday nights to welcome a wider age group.

“There’s always lots of families with their kids running all over the place from 6 to 8 p.m. while their parents are having a quiet beer or two,” said Steve Hindy, one of the owners. Hindy said that some of the brewery’s Friday night regulars met at the bar 15 years ago when they were single. Now married, they return with their children.

The trend is not confined to just Williamsburg. Bars in other neighborhoods that have a high concentration of young families, like Park Slope and the Upper East and Upper West Side, are also following suit.

In 2004, a new mother named Shara Frederick organized a group called “Tots and Tonic” which holds regular happy hours for moms at the Lucky Cat in Williamsburg. The group has now expanded to Carroll Gardens, Park Slope and the Union Square area.

Not all New Yorkers, however, are thrilled with the idea of toddlers hanging out in their local pub. The controversy recently made its way into the editorial pages of The New York Times when writer Nicholas Kulish complained that “the local gin joints look more like jungle gyms.”

“Call me a hard-liner or a party pooper, but I say 21 means 21,” Kulish argued. “No more babies in bars.”

So far Williamsburg hasn’t had a high profile backlash like one that occurred in Park Slope this year when a bartender at the Patio Lounge posted “A Stroller Manifesto” calling for an end to mixing of babies and booze.

The manifesto stated: “A bar is a place for adults to kick back and relax. How can you do that with a toddler running around or crying, getting changed on the table next to you or being breast-fed? And is a bar really the kind of environment a child should be exposed to? I know in Europe it is commonplace, but hey - this is America, baby.”

Steve Hindy of the Brooklyn Brewery said his childless patrons rarely complain about the kids, but his staff sometimes does - presumably because the children don't tip and sometimes misbehave more than inebriated adult customers. "But I don't want it to be a bar scene or just old folks," Hindy added. "I like it being family-oriented."

And Serena Siegfried of Willie Bee’s said she keeps a close watch on the adults to make sure that they are not drinking too much. “We’ve never had an incident,” she said. “It’s something I wanted to keep an eye on from the beginning.”

Deb Parker of the Tainted Lady argues that it's a matter of taste.

"At first I wasn't sure if the bar would be kid-appropriate with all the naked-lady pictures," Parker told Time Out New York Kids magazine. "But every kid who comes here has a picture that they gravitate to. There's one in the corner that [my son] Earl keeps licking."



Waterfront Rezoning

October 15, 2004

By Ivan Gale

The Williamsburg and Greenpoint waterfront today is one of empty, fenced-off lots full of weeds and litter. A few five-story brick buildings, gutted with cracked windows, serve as reminders that the neighborhoods once bustled with factories. Now, there are only a few heavy trucks rumbling past.

But behind the scenes, the 1.6 miles of waterfront and adjoining streets are a political battleground. The area will soon be revitalized when the city rezones the area from manufacturing to residential use. The residences that will be built are likely to be high rises for the affluent.

Local politicians and activists want guarantees for affordable housing and open space written into the zoning amendments. But this is pitting them against the city Department of City Planning, which has so far resisted their demands.

The department has certified the comprehensive rezoning plan after years of work by both the city and the local Community Board 1. Under the plan, the city expects nearly 18,000 new residents on 184 blocks along the waterfront and surrounding area in the next 10 years. While tall condos will be allowed along the shore, maximum heights of the structures will gradually taper down to match with existing buildings away from the water.

This certification launches a seven-month planning and review process called Uniform Land Use Review Procedure. Both the local Community Board 1 and Borough President Marty Markowitz will be able to review it and make suggestions before eventually going before a vote in the City Council.


Affordable Housing

Housing has long been a central issue to Williamsburg politics. With the massive new construction, the fear is that the people living here now will no longer afford to stay here.

“Building 8,000 units could result in 24,000 new people, most of them earning over $200,000 per year,” said State Assemblyman Vito Lopez. “That would drastically change the neighborhood character.” Lopez is demanding that 40 percent of all new construction be made available to low-income families. Councilmember David Yassky has a proposed plan that calls for 20 percent.

As is, the proposed plan has a series of financial incentives to encourage developers to build some apartments for low-income families, but it is voluntary, not mandatory.

“Changes and amendments can still be made,” said Meghann Curtis, legislative director for Yassky, “but it certainly worries us.”

City Planning spokeswoman Rachaele Raynoff said “the numbers are still being crunched” to determine a mandatory requirement. “It needs to be very carefully analyzed so it will hold up throughout fluctuating markets,” she said. “That’s precisely the work that is being done right now.”

It is uncertain whether developers will embrace any requirements that would cut into their bottom line.

Andy Gerringer, marketing director for real estate firm Douglas Elliman, predicted affordable housing quotas wouldn’t be a problem. “If you build an affordable housing component,” he said, “you usually get lower interest rates or you get to build more square feet. It’s probably pretty close to a break-even.”


Open Space?

Open space, also noted as woefully lacking by the Community Board, will be expanded in the waterfront plan. The thousands of new riverside residents will be able to walk along a lengthy esplanade and play in a 28-acre park, part of a proposed 50 acres of open space.

But as with housing, some activists want the city to do more.

“This document they certified has not changed since the beginning,” said Joe Vance, a director of the Greenpoint Waterfront Association for Parks and Planning. He said the community district ranked among the lowest in terms of measuring the amount of open space per resident, and that the city was doing nothing to improve it. Under the city’s current plan, he said, “The open space ratio, per person in the community, will be absolutely unchanged.” Vance predicted the new parks will be overburdened by the new waterfront inhabitants. “They will look like a big dustbowl.”





Brooklyn Heights-DUMBO: A Park Between the Bridges

March 10, 2004

By Reginald Constant

It is not surprising that many people support the construction of Brooklyn Bridge Park, 70 acres of new parkland that would extend a mile south of the Manhattan Bridge. The park, after all, would remove unsightly buildings along the piers, which remain as relics of obsolete maritime industry, and help revive the neighborhood economy. It would open some of the city's most attractive waterfront to the public.

Initially, though, a few residents of Brooklyn Heights saw the park as a threat to their community.

The plan for the park features recreational areas, a marshland habitat for wildlife, a marina and green lands connected by bicycle and pedestrian paths. Paths from the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, ferry landings, bus stops and a number of entrances from Main Street, Old Fulton Street and Montague Street would provide access to the park from downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan.

But the original design also included space for a proposed hotel, amphitheater, restaurants, stores and office space. And it is these facilities that generated the opposition to the park.

The developers of the park proposed creating the commercial enterprises to generate revenue to support the park's operation. This type of arrangement is typical of the recent trend in shifting park financing from taxpayer subsidies to commercial ventures on park grounds.

The state and city governments have allocated $150 million toward the construction of the park. In addition to public funding, between $400 million and $500 million of private funding would be needed to build the commercial facilities whose revenues are expected to bring in the money for upkeep of the park.

The expected result would be a self-sufficient park. According to Nancy Bowe, president of the Brooklyn Heights Association, a neighborhood organization that supports creation of a park, the idea of using rents from commercial ventures to sustain services in Brooklyn Bridge Park stems from the need to be independent from the whims of city and state government. If the park is self-sufficient, Bowe pointed out, it doesn't depend on the highs and lows of funding from the government.

Some residents of Brooklyn Heights worried about what they saw as a highly commercialized park near their tree-lined neighborhood. Some saw the entire park project as a simply a pretext for commercial development along the waterfront. After all, these skeptics argued, what did a hotel and an amphitheater have to do with a public park? Central to their complaints was the fear that the park would attract hordes of pedestrians and motorists from outside the neighborhood who would damage property and choke the area with traffic.

The Brooklyn Bridge Park Coalition, which includes community groups and environmentalists that support the creation of the park, and the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation, an 11-member board appointed by the governor and the mayor, have tried to address these concerns. For example, the park's planners eliminated the amphitheater. They also are looking to reduce pedestrian and vehicular traffic along Joralemon Street, which is currently one of two main streets leading to the park site, by using other downtown Brooklyn streets like Atlantic Avenue, said Daniel Gritzer, program director of the coalition.

The Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation has restricted commercial space to 20 percent of the park site. Moreover, the corporation established the Citizens Advisory Committee to work with community groups and ensure that local residents are heard. The development corporation also says that the city would benefit enormously from the park. According to the corporation's projections, the park would generate 1,000 jobs and annual tax revenues above $15 million.

Relations between park planners and the community are now amicable. But with construction not slated to begin until 2005 -- and other projects, including an arena for the NBA Nets, planned for downtown Brooklyn -- things could shift again.

............................

Related Story:

New York is building new parks and restoring old ones -- at a time of budget cutbacks and staff reductions. Anne Schwartz reports on how this has been possible.





Engine Company 212: Another Fight, 30 Years Later

August 8, 2003

By Rajasri Mallikarjuna

For most of a recent humid afternoon, Mark Sugarwhite camped outside Engine Company 212, in a large blue tent. "I'll stay until the next person comes," he said. "We take turns, so there's at least one person here at all times."

He is one of some 160 people still fighting the May closing of Engine Company 212. It was closed, the city said, because it was one of the least active firehouses in the city, responding only to 1,095 emergencies in Williamsburg in 2002, according to fire department statistics.

But the protesters plan to stay until the city reopens the firehouse - they have created a web site called 212 to press their cause - and they are confident they will win.

That is because they have won before. Protesters have been modeling many of their tactics -- holding vigils and rallies and appealing to City Hall -- after the actions of Williamsburg residents in the mid-1970s, when the same firehouse was closed for 18 months.

The residents held a vigil then, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and it had its effect. The city reopened the company, nicknamed the People's Firehouse, in 1977. Adam Veneski was a leader in that fight. His group, the People's Firehouse, has gone back into action to fight the current closing. Though Adam Veneski is dead, his son Paul Veneski is a leader in the present struggle.

But some things have changed in 25 years. Veneski says that because more of today's residents are "transients, just people passing through," there is somewhat less concern over the closing than there was in 1975 when many residents were members of families that had lived in the area for generations. "It's harder to get people involved," he said.

But not impossible: Eight activists were arrested during a protest and charged with trespass and disorderly conduct. And demonstrators heckled Mayor Bloomberg for closing the People's Firehouse at the 100th anniversary ceremony of the Williamsburg Bridge in June.

In the 1970s Northside Williamsburg faced an increase in arson and crime. Shutting down the firehouse came as a blow to a neighborhood that had had other services taken away, including a police precinct and a baby clinic. Reopening the firehouse soothed fears and fostered a stronger relationship between residents and firefighters.

Now, with new housing, shops and restaurants, the neighborhood's revival creates new dangers. "Williamsburg is becoming a posh area -- a lot of people are moving there -- and now there's less [fire] protection along the waterfront," said Debora Jackson, web master of Nofirecuts.com, which tracks New York firehouse closings.

Jackson said that Radiac Corp., a low-level nuclear waste storage facility 12 blocks from the firehouse, poses a greater threat to the community now that Foam 212 - a company that was part of that firehouse and fought chemical fires - has also been disbanded. "The city decides to store radioactive waste in the middle of the city, and now they're taking the closest firehouse away," she said.

The city reportedly chose to shut down the firehouses with the fastest response times and that served areas that were experiencing steady declines in numbers of fires (see related story).

On August 7, the fire department released statistics that showed that response times in the area increased by 16 seconds over the same time last year. Officials noted that the average time was still 27 seconds faster than the citywide average.

But protesters like Mark Sugarwhite and Martin Price, a retired Brooklyn firefighter, challenge the city numbers. They argue that now that the People's Firehouse is closed, the response time for the neighborhood has increased to 11 minutes, the amount of time they said it took a Queens company to get to a fire in Northside Williamsburg in early July. And other demonstrators told NY1 that New York City neighborhoods besides Williamsburg will suffer from the closing, since it has forced Queens and Manhattan companies to extend their coverage to Williamsburg.

Only one fire engine remains in the fire station and it is there for storage only. But for those committed to saving the fire station the engine has symbolic value. If the city wants to remove Engine Company 212's remaining fire truck, Price says, "they'll have to take it out by force."

For a look at the city-wide issue of firehouse closings, see Gotham Gazette's Issue of the Week, Firehouses.






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ALL DISTRICT 33 MAJOR ISSUES
Give'em L: The Need for More Subway Service to Williamsburgh
(Apr 14, 2006)

Williamsburg's Baby Bars
(Mar 24, 2006)

Waterfront Rezoning
(Oct 15, 2004)

Brooklyn Heights-DUMBO: A Park Between the Bridges
(Mar 10, 2004)

Engine Company 212: Another Fight, 30 Years Later
(Aug 08, 2003)

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