Preserving Social History on Roosevelt IslandMay 26, 2005 Although many buildings were destroyed, Roosevelt Island still boasts landmarks offering insight into New York's social and architectural history. (Read More...)

Garbage Returns to the Upper East SideOctober 15, 2004 by Mohi Kumar
Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s decision to reopen the garbage transfer station on East
91st Street, as part of his new 20-year plan to handle the city's garbage, surprised Charles Warren. "Maybe the mayor thought he would be viewed as even-handed if he picked a station near Gracie Mansion," Warren said -- "though [he]lives elsewhere."
Warren, the chair of Community Board 8, lives closer than Bloomberg to the station, as does Gifford Miller, the Speaker of the City Council who is running against Bloomberg next year. Miller has taken up the call of many area residents who remember the congested streets and foul smells when the pier was open to garbage trucks day after day.
Until 2001, the East 91st Street station was used to haul Manhattan’s garbage to Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island; when Fresh Kills was closed, private transfer stations in the South Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens replaced it, preparing trash to be shipped out of state.
Residents here remember an unpleasant situation, and fear that the station will be even more of a burden when reopened.
"Garbage trucks will come here and line up, waiting to get inside. It will smell quite a bit," said Warren, who says the station is expected to handle more garbage than it ever did in the past.
There is particular alarm because the gate to the pier is right next to Asphalt Green Park, where many children play.
Under a 2002 plan, eight such stations would have opened in Manhattan. Upper East Siders ask why their area has been chosen as one of four, which will now have to take double the garbage originally intended.
"If you look at the locations of other sites proposed for marine transfer stations, this is the only one actually in a residential area," said Tony Aard, president of Gracie Point Community Council, a local organization opposed to the city’s plan.
Aard cites research from Columbia’s Mailman School of Public health which found a possible link between increased asthma rates in areas that had the large numbers of diesel trucks that transfer stations bring. Transfer stations in another residential neighborhood that could handle residential waste – Harlem – will remain closed.
"If such allergens are responsible for problems in Harlem, how does it make sense to
replicate health problems here, in a neighborhood with children and elderly?” he asked.
Mayor Bloomberg’s reply is that, while nobody wants to have garbage passing through the neighborhood, someone will have to. The Upper East Side already has the infrastructure to handle the garbage in Manhattan that is not shipped to New Jersey, therefore it is a logical choice to reopen.
Eddie Bautista thinks that the Upper East Side’s resistance to the
mayor’s plan is a classic case of ‘Not-in-My-Backyard.’ As the
director of community planning for the New York Lawyers for the
Public Interest, Bautista facilitates the Organization of
Waterfront Neighborhoods, a citywide grassroots coalition formed
seven years ago to advocate against the current concentration of
waste transfer stations in poor communities.
“People near East 91st Street are exploiting and misrepresenting the
situation,” Bautista said. Like Asphalt Green Park in Gracie Point,
“there are parks near the proposed transfer station in Greenpoint,
there is parkland not 100 yards from the Hamilton station, and from
Bensonhurst’s.” Bautista also added that the East 91st Street
transfer station would draw waste from exactly the same areas that
it did in the past—the Upper East Side, Randal and Ward’s islands,
East Harlem, and much of Midtown. “They could care less about
their civic responsibility to handle their own trash,” he said.
Moreover, “the Harlem site is located in an area that is already
environmentally overburdened,” Bautista said. East
Harlem has high levels of bus traffic because of depots in the neighborhood, which are blamed
for the high asthma rates suffered by East Harlem’s children. “I
can’t imagine that this was not a factor in selecting which
transfer station to reopen,” Bautista said.
Residents of the South Bronx, who have learned firsthand the reasons to oppose transfer stations in the neighborhood, are happy to see someone else sharing the burden. They feel that for too long they – and other poor minority neighborhoods – have been the ones to suffer from Manhattan’s trash.
Everyone should get their fair share of handling their borough's waste," said Maria Torres, the Director of The Point Community Development Center, located in Hunts Point, South Bronx, where the United States Census reports that about half of residents live in poverty. "If Manhattan starts, it is a step in the right direction. That way we don't keep getting all the waste here."[See Dumping Ground No Longer? in the Community Gazettes for Hunts Point]
For his part, the mayor has said that he will work to reduce the ill effects of transfer stations for those communities where they are located. But Aard feels that the mayor’s plan to assure “appropriate buffer zones between transfer stations and sensitive locations such as residential districts, parks and schools,” an acknowledgement of possible environmental problems, should prevent this particular station from being reopened.
Rather than making wealthy residential neighborhoods suffer alongside poorer ones, Sandy Whitlock, whose apartment overlooks the street where the trucks used to line up to enter the East 91st Street station, thinks that the city should avoid residential neighborhoods altogether.
“I know that the garbage has to go someplace, she said. “But it shouldn’t have to impact a residential community, whether that community is here or in Harlem.”
For a citywide overview, go to The Mayor's New Garbage Plan

Breast Cancer RatesJuly 31, 2003 The Upper East Side has a higher than average rate of breast cancer for women. New York University researchers recently received a $500,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to find out why. The study will consider demographics, ethnicity, age, and possible effects from the 19 power plants that serve the area.

Homepage of the Community Gazette for District 5
Gotham Gazette's Community Gazettes Community news, views, and potholes for each council district
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ALL DISTRICT 5 MAJOR ISSUES Preserving Social History on Roosevelt Island
(May 26, 2005)
Garbage Returns to the Upper East Side
(Oct 15, 2004)
Breast Cancer Rates
(Jul 31, 2003)
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