2023 PortSide year-end report
/Recap of PortSide’s 2023 impact on public policy, education, and historic preservation! And the year’s not over! There are December milestones and news in here!
Read MoreNYC needs more #piers4boats! PortSide’s blog covers our WaterStories programs, urban waterways issues, the BLUEspace, development plans for the NYC waterfront, our ship MARY A. WHALEN, other historic vessels, and boats and ships of all sizes.
EDC issues in Red Hook’s Atlantic Basin, summer 2023
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For the TLDR folks:
The NYC EDC promised Red Hook a lot over the years starting in 2005. The EDC did not fulfill those promises to Red Hook about how their management of Atlantic Basin would benefit the community. Spring 2023, Councilmember Alexa Avilés intervened to fix the latest batch of EDC problems: she ran months of weekly Zooms with the EDC and community members over the summer; she co-authored a City Council bill Intro 1050 that would oblige the EDC to fulfill some of those promises. In response, in September 2023, the EDC put out a press release with yet more promises. Many people are concerned about the EDC’s RFP for Atlantic Basin that they released witthout notifying local people as it looks to be planning a last mile facility, but one using the waterways, and many last mile facilities have been built in Red Hook during the pandemic, with more on the way.
June 6, the EDC shut down PortSide programs while we were trying to get the EDC to renew our berth permit (a contract for our ship MARY WHALEN to be here). We get Councilmember Avilés involved in this too; but the EDC keeps moving the goal posts and the process drags on until October 6, so we lose the whole summer program season.
Our nonprofit PortSide has monitored the EDC’s performance in Atlantic Basin for years (see webpage here) and is one of the victims of EDC unfulfilled promises; so on behalf of all, in late 2022 we launched a campaign to reform the EDC called #rethinkEDC. The EDC is the New York City Economic Development Corporation, a nonprofit, quasi-governmental organization that does a huge amount of work for NYC City government.
In detail
The Brooklyn Cruise Terminal (BCT) in Red Hook is located inside the “Atlantic Basin” facility owned by the Port Authority and managed by the NYC EDC. PortSide is in here on Pier 11 aboard the ship MARY A. WHALEN. In 2023, use of BCT on Pier 12 soared to unprecedented levels with many more ships and weekly visits by the biggest ship we’ve ever had here, the 5th largest cruise ship in the world MSC Meraviglia as of April 20, 2023. The max passenger count plus crew count of that ship at 6,636 is about 2/3 of the population of Red Hook. The western side of the peninsula of Red Hook was buried in traffic, causing the B61 bus to be re-routed and an ambulance to drive down the Van Brunt Street sidewalk. Businesses couldn’t get staff and customers in. The gridlock lasted for hours.
How much traffic? What we now know is that standard volume for the MSC ship Meraviglia is 400 to 600 vehicles inbound per hour from 7am until 11:15am, tapering down to 200 vehicles when it ends at noon, according to measurements on 6/4 and 6/11. Red Hook was already agitated about traffic due to number of last mile facilities built here during the pandemic.
Full traffic report here.
* We have two air quality monitors on our MARY WHALEN’s wheelhouse: see Purple air map and our Davis AQI.
Many Red Hook people complained to Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and Councilmember Alexa Avilés. Those elected officials wrote a joint letter to the EDC. Alexa sent the EDC another letter on 8/7/23 about shorepower and other cruise EJ issues.
To tackle this, Avilés set up a weekly Zoom call with the EDC, the new Red Hook Business Alliance (we’re members and were on these Zooms), and residents Kiki Rakowsky and Matias Kalwill. These weekly Zooms ran throughout the summer and focused on improving the traffic situation, though other issues lurked in the background:
the cruise terminal had never delivered economic benefits to Red Hook.
the EDC had not fixed the shorepower, though they promised to in 2019 (after years of dodging questions) and getting $750,000 from Borough Hall in April, 2021. The air pollution* is a burden on this EJ neighborhood and does not help fight climate change.
the EDC had not delivered the home they promised to us PortSide on round one (2008 into 2011) or just the building space after the 2018 business plan they made us do. Then, on June 6, 2023 they cancelled our summer programs during an unfair process to renew our berth permit (a contract for our flagship MARY WHALEN to be here). The berth permit negotiations, with CM Alexa Aviles’ office assisting, were not concluded until 10/6/23, so we were prevented from having 2023 summer programs. This may cost PortSide some $30,000 in grant money, deprived us of the opportunity for the many fundraising/friendraising concerts we planned, reduced the number of volunteers we recruited since people often learn about us and volunteer via events; AND deprived those that we serve of our programs.
The EDC released an RFP for Atlantic Basin Anchor subtenant that looked like a plan for another last mile facility – NOT a popular idea in Red Hook - though one using the waterways - and would displace the MARY WHALEN, making PortSide homeless.
During the first of the weekly Zooms with the EDC, Susan Povich, head of the Red Hook Business Alliance and owner of the Red Hook Lobster Pound asked if the EDC had made plans to deal with the huge surge in traffic. The answer was ‘no” and indicative of the extractive way the EDC has run this entire facility (taking the revenue and not givnig back nor mitigating negative effects).
This compounded the nothing the EDC had done over the years to make the cruise terminal easy to find and the Atlantic Basin facility easy to navigate (despite many PortSide suggestions). There was a lack of signage inside and out. They had not communicated directions to all the wayfinding apps the way the Port Authority does for the airports, so hundreds of drivers were misled by uninformed apps. Part of the problem is that the MSC passengers are coming in individual cars, not in coach buses like many of Cunard’s QM2 passengers (a ship that carries half the number of passengers), so the MSC Meraviglia meant many more vehicles and non-professional drivers who might know how to get here.
Chaos ensued, some of it dangerous since pedestrians were not well separated inside Atlantic Basin from moving and parked cars and huge trucks; and the corner of Pioneer Street and Conover was a mess with bikes coming off the Greenway to encounter a gridlock of double-parked cars and clumps of cruise passengers with rolling luggage. The pedestrian gate at that corner is not wide enough to handle more that one person at a time, so pedestrian clustering and clogging was intense.
The vehicular entrance to Atlantic Basin was gridlocked, so passenger pick-up and drop-off began occurring blocks away from BCT, congesting local streets further.
Local users of the Red Hook/Atlantic Basin ferry stop found the ferry system overwhelmed and hard to use. No extra boats were added on cruise ship days.
None of this worked well for anyone.
Avilés and/or her Chief of Staff Ed Cerna ran weekly Zooms, and Red Hook voices shared the latest documentation of problems and offered many solutions. Community people basically tackled a long list of operational challenges that the EDC should know to do and should have done. Here are some early suggestions from PortSide. The EDC was very responsive, and hired traffic engineers who also made suggestions, and things improved each week.
Here are some immediate changes during cruise days:
The interior roadway of Atlantic Basin was changed to 3 lanes, 2 in and 1 out.
The exit for BCT on MSC days became Wolcott Street to get vehicles out faster.
People were paid to direct exiting vehicles as to the best way out of Red Hook.
The MSC ship sailed later to allow for more time for boarding.
The wayfinding apps were all notified of how to get to and into Atlantic Basin. NYPD were stationed at several intersections.
Crossing guards were added to the corner of Pioneer and Conover and the crosswalk just inisde Atlantic Basin by that corner.
The block of Conover south of that corner had the bikepath protected by road cones so that cars could not use it as a loading/unloading zone.
By October, the EDC added ferries on days when cruise ship passengers were visiting NYC, and more.
During the last Zoom of the summer on 8/11/23, the traffic engineers hired by the EDC presented this report (the source of the traffic study slides on this page). The understanding was that the Zoom working group would take a 2-week break and resume to discuss economic development, eg economic benefits for Red Hook – something the EDC had totally failed to deliver to Red Hook in their management of Atlantic Basin, and had not shown any signs of attempting.
Alexa Avilés team did a great job ensuring progress, but a Councilmember should not have to spend this kind of time on operations. This is the kind of work a good economic development agency would do on their own.
Intro 1050
During the first month of weekly EDC Zoom meetings, Avilés had also been partnering with the Councilmember Erik Bottcher, who has the larger Manhattan cruise terminal in his district, to co-author City Council bill Intro 1050, released May 25, 2023, which would oblige the EDC to do what it has not done on its own. The bill mandates that the EDC supply shorepower at both terminals, only allow ships that use shorepower to visit NYC, and create traffic management plans.
Avilés and Bottcher held a press conference about Intro 1050 on Red Hook’s Pioneer Street on September 18 with a cruise ship in the background.
Tweets about the press conference
Councilmember Alexa Avilés
Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso
NYS Senator Andrew Gounardes
Reporting about the press conference
The surprising EDC response
Ten days after the press conference about Intro 1050, on September 28, 2023, the EDC surprised everyone by putting out a press release with promises about shorepower use, traffic plans, and community benefits. The relevant Councilmembers Bottcher and Avilés were not quoted (a deviation from protocol), nor were any Red Hook voices. The EDC has a history of NOT fulfilling promises in Red Hook, so having the EDC promise more things has not been reassuring.
Additionally, the terms in the EDC proposal leave much to be desired. Here are some observations:
The EDC proposed their own (slow) schedule for installing shorepower, did not separate the BCT shorepower timeline from Manhattan (fix ours already, Manhattan doesn’t have any yet, so why should Red Hook have to wait until Manhattan’s is installed?).
The EDC is offering to create a community benefit fund via a head tax on cruise passengers, but that is not fair to Red Hook. This neighborhood gets no significant economic benefit from the cruise ships whereas Manhattan does, and the EDC makes money here via more than the cruise terminal. In short, Red Hook deserves a share from ALL that the EDC makes in Atlantic Basin and should get a higher percentage than Manhattan since Red Hook gets almost no indirect economic benefits from the cruise terminal but Manhattan gets lots.
Also, the EDC proposes to manage the community benefit fund, but why would Red Hook trust the EDC to run the community benefit fund they are proposing? They’ve ignored the community for years.
The EDC should fulfill some old promises, one being space for a fully-realized PortSide NewYork, NOT displacing us via an RFP.
EDC backtracking
At some point in the year, the EDC began to backtrack on one improvement, their new BCT schedule webpage. In 2023, they FINALLY separated Brooklyn and Manhattan cruise shedules onto separate webpages (something PortSide suggested for years) and grew it to include all we had suggested. The backtracking shows how the EDC evades accountability and transparency. The colums on the right side of the page have changed. At the point we think they were the best, they showed if a ship was shorepower compatible and if it had connected to shorepower.
It’s no longer possible to tell if a ship connected. As of November 5, 2023, and for some time now, the two right columns say if the ship is shorepower compatible and if it is BCT shorepower compatible; there’s no info about actual connection.
At some point, the EDC also began deleting the list of ships that had already been here this year, so it’s not possible to see at a glance how often cruise ships are impacting Red Hook in terms of ship exhaust or vehicle traffic.
Similarly, the EDC’s new language about the Brooklyn shorepower evades accountability. This year the EDC began saying “we are proud of the Brooklyn shorepower installation for being the first on the east coast.” That positioning is slippery PR and severely disrespectful to the EJ community of Red Hook that fought to have the shorepower installed and then suffered years of EDC evasion about why it isn’t working and years of EDC delays fixing it.
For a detailed history of the BCT shorepower saga, visit Adam Armstrong’s blog (active into 2018) and very active Twitter feed.
EDC machinations with PortSide’s 2023 berth permit
PortSide’s experience renewing our berth permit in 2023 reveals the kind of EDC machinations that are chronic.
Starting Spring 2022, the EDC would deny PortSide requests saying “it violates our lease with the Port Authority.” We’d check with the Port Authority; and in every case, the EDC statement was false. For example, no, the EDC is not prevented from renting us the size building space for the term we requested in our 2018 business plan.
After checking with the Port Authority several times about such EDC claims, the Port Authority told us to FOIL the lease (submit a Freedom of Information Law request, the official way to get info from governmental organizations). We did that immediately in October 2022.
During our berth permit negotiations, in April 2023, the EDC claimed another PortSide request violated their lease, our desire to again have a shipkeeper (overnight presence on the ship). Unfortunately, the Port Authority didn’t respond for almost two months, so the EDC said our summer programs were cancelled since we hadn’t signed the berth permit while were waiting to hear from the Port Authority. The Port Authority responded promptly to the cancellation of PortSide’s summer programs by sending their lease with the EDC (and no, shipkeepers are NOT prohibited) and by sending a Port Authority shipkeeper policy (which the EDC ultimately ignored).
We got our Councilmember Alexa Avilés involved and asked for her to run Zoom meetings with the EDC as she had done for the cruise traffic issues above. We are certain that her presence and pressure helped, but the EDC kept up the machinations. Next, the EDC said we needed more insurance. We got more. Then, they said we needed even more insurance, and we got more.
Then, the EDC claimed our insurance didn’t cover liquor use; but we clarified that it did. This dragged on until Friday 10/6/23, so we lost a whole season of summer programs, which may cost us grant money.
In the end, the EDC ended up deleting the reference to the new Port Authority shipkeeper policy we put in our draft of the berth permit, so the position of their landlord was only relevant when the EDC was misrepresenting it to deny PortSide something. If the Port Authority position didn’t support the EDC’s position, then the EDC ignored it.
As we say, time to #rethinkEDC for a better PortSide, a better Red Hook, and a better NYC.
PortSide NewYork wins White House "Champions of Change" Sandy recovery award (Originally posted May 2013)→
/PortSide NewYork is honored to have won a White House "Champions of Change" award for our work during and after hurricane Sandy. We hope the award will allow us to continue our Sandy-aid work, launch new resilience training programs, and attract more assistance to Red Hook. Things look promising; the phone has started to ring. Until we finish the blogpost about Part II of our Sandy story, we've added photos to a press release below to tell that story. Part I of the story, how we protected the MARY A. WHALEN from Sandy, can be read here.
PortSide's Story Ashore
PortSide is based on a historic ship, the tanker MARY A. WHALEN, which the organization succeeded in getting listed on the National Register of Historic Places just days before the storm. In the face of Sandy, PortSide’s first responsibility was to protect the MARY from damage, and to prevent her from damaging the property of others. The sad fate of the tanker JOHN B. CADDELL, which went aground during Sandy, is an example of what can happen to an untended ship this size. PortSide assembled a crew of volunteers to prepare the MARY over five days before the surge and to ride out the storm on the vessel.
After assessing the damage to their archive of historic papers and artifacts stored in the shed, the PortSide crew entered Red Hook on Wednesday afternoon to find that the community had not fared as well. PortSide made an immediate decision to drop their own issues, decamp from the ship, and offer to help. The result was the Sandy aid station "351".
Craig Hammerman, District Manager of Brooklyn, Community Board 6, in his nomination of PortSide for the “Champions For Change” Award, said “PortSide NewYork’s innovative approach was to apply their experience with cultural pop-ups to create an immediate, inventive community-based Sandy aid station that continually changed services in response to needs and opportunities. PortSide deployed a deep knowledge of the community to pull it all off.”
Essential to the PortSide effort was the ability to rapidly identify partners and forge agreements. On Thursday night, PortSide Director Carolina Salguero began assessing what other groups were already doing, and where PortSide could best use its capabilities. Salguero worked with Realty Collective, a community-minded real estate brokerage with offices in the Columbia Waterfront District and Red Hook neighborhoods of Brooklyn. Realty Collective donated a storefront at 351 Van Brunt Street in Red Hook, complete with free electricity, internet and a phone line, despite the fact that their principal Victoria Hagman was herself a Sandy victim whose Red Hook home was flooded.
Over Thursday night, Realty Collective and PortSide secured the co-operation of Gallery Brooklyn, who shares the storefront with the brokerage. The result was an only-in-Red-Hook blend: an aid station run by a maritime organization in a real estate office that was also an art gallery.
PortSide gathered volunteers off the street to get six computer workstations, office furniture and equipment from PortSide’s offices on the tanker to set up at “351”. The internet was down, so PortSide volunteer and museum curator Rothenberg ran a Clear wireless hub up a tree for two days until a PortSide contact at the Port Authority, who had previously worked to establish the cellphone network in the northeast, helped get Red Hook’s Verizon internet and cellphone service reconnected.
“351” became a haven for people -- to escape the cold, to charge cell phones, I-pads, and power tools, to check e-mail to blow up a new air bed, to start the FEMA application or an insurance claim, or to wait for an escort to enter an apartment building whose electronic doors didn’t lock without power. Sandy victims remarked that the gallery environment with bright art on the walls was uplifting. The Director of Gallery Brooklyn, Jenna Weber, was so moved by the scene that she offered to donate 10% of exhibition sales to Red Hook relief.
PortSide’s MO was to respond to initiatives or needs coming from the community, through both action and communication. Emergency information replaced real estate listings in the storefront window. “351” was the first small business recovery center in Red Hook, before IKEA’s aid center opened or the FEMA trailers arrived, and served as a hub for Red Hook residents and business people to learn about aid programs while gaining emotional support and tips from one another. Residents and businesses could use the space to set up their own meetings – one day included overlapping sessions with a restaurant supply vendor and a legal aid clinic with 20 lawyers. Realty Collective invited Katrina-savvy architect Jim Garrison from the Pratt Institute to talk to a packed house about resilient ways to rebuild. PortSide served as a conduit to and from the growing sources of outside aid: elected officials, the Mayor’s office, FEMA, and the Department of Small Business Services.
Residents of Pioneer Street showed extraordinary initiative and cooperation on their one block and brought many ideas down the street to PortSide, who helped manage them and shared them with other Red Hook residents. One example was the coordination of the services of angel electrician Danny Schneider, who arrived from nearby Park Slope in Brooklyn and went on to inspect 60 homes at no charge and to repair many. (He also volunteered in the Rockaways.)
PortSide closed the center in early December. During PortSide’s time ashore, the shorepower connection to the tanker MARY A. WHALEN was knocked out, and PortSide operated for 35 nights with flashlights and one 15 amp extension cord.
Today, PortSide continues providing Sandy relief work via other social media, working with elected officials and on post Sandy initiatives from the Mayor’s office, and by responding to requests from residents and businesses. Plans are being developed for programs that will help Red Hook learn from its own response and develop response plans for future floods. PortSide wants to bring its two constituencies, the world ashore and the world afloat, together. Inland people can be trained in the mariner knowledge base that enabled PortSide to prepare the ship for the storm and which might have prevented a lot of the damage.
PortSide's nominator for the award, the District Manager of Brooklyn Community Board 6 Craig Hammerman wrote “PortSide’s work is an example of the community-based, mutual-aid system that has caused the heavily-damaged neighborhood of Red Hook to become a model for New Yorkers looking for lessons in the Sandy story.”
Statement by Carolina Salguero, Director of PortSide NewYork
All of us here at PortSide NewYork are very honored to receive this White House award and look forward to meeting the other winners so we can learn from their stories. After that, we look forward to growing the post-Sandy flood preparedness programs we would like to offer Red Hook and beyond. We would like to thank the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for their support during Hurricane Sandy while we were in their Red Hook container port. We offer profuse thanks to our partners at “351”, Realty Collective and Gallery Brooklyn, who opened their doors to Red Hook and made the aid center possible. Victoria Hagman of Realty Collective is really a gem to have given so much at a time when her own home was so destroyed by Sandy. We would like to thank all those volunteers who came in to help, especially the angel electrician Danny Schneider who did work in Red Hook and the Rockaways at no charge. Speaking personally, I was very moved by the collective spirit which sustained Red Hook in those first dark days. Let’s keep that spirit alive; it takes a village, we were all it, and we need to keep that spirit going forward.
Statement by Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez (D-NY):
“PortSide NewYork is to be commended for their work protecting the MARY A. WHALEN and establishing relief services for Red Hook.”
Statement by New York State Senator Velmanette Montgomery
“It gives me great pleasure to give my highest recommendation for consideration as a Champion for Change” to PortSide NewYork.
PortSide NewYork is headquartered on the MARY WHALEN, a decommissioned tanker ship in Red Hook, a coastal community in Brooklyn. PortSide NewYork has been working for years to preserve and communicate the seafaring history of Brooklyn to our schoolchildren and new neighbors. They have embodied community service every day of their existence, but during Superstorm Sandy, they showed exactly how deep commitment to service and community could be.
Thanks to their professional preparations, the MARY WHALEN weathered the storm and the destructive surge in fine shape, but the same could not be said for Red Hook itself. The neighborhood was devastated and lacked electricity and other services for weeks afterward. The staff of PortSide NewYork, led by the indefatigable Carolina Salguero, came ashore and set up a communications hub and aid center in a donated space. They set up meetings between residents and elected officials, engineers, lawyers, electricians...anyone who needed something came to them and PortSide NewYork reached out to find it. I don't know what we would have done without them.”
Statement by Rob Walsh, Commissioner of the NYC Department of Small Business Services
“Immediately after Hurricane Sandy, I was out in impacted neighborhoods like Red Hook speaking to small business owners about their needs and how the City could help. It was incredible to see the individuals, organizations, and business owners who stepped up to help each other out. PortSide New York served as a strong partner, helping us get the word out about the City’s low-interest loans, matching grants, and other assistance available to small business owners impacted by Hurricane Sandy, and I congratulate them for this well deserved award.
Statement by Carlo A. Scissura, President & CEO of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce “Red Hook was one of the neighborhoods hardest-hit by Sandy. It’s because of groups like PortSide that we were able to help businesses in the neighborhood,” said Carlo A. Scissura, President & CEO of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. “By housing members of our staff during those critical weeks following the storm, the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce was able to help business owners fill out essential loan applications and other paperwork in order to get their stores open again. PortSide’s aid center became a critical hub for the community and a place where they could get relief. We could not have done our work in helping local businesses without them.”
Statement by Danny Schneider, Principal, Schneider Electrical Contracting
“Hurricane Sandy threw Red Hook into a tail spin. Residents rose to the occasion and with tenacity and synergy, and strengthened their character.”
Statement by Adam Armstrong, Pioneer Street Homeowner, blogger “A View from the Hook”
In the chaotic aftermath of Super Storm Sandy, PortSide New York provided a vital and invaluable resource for the residents of Red Hook. After riding out the storm and saving their own ship, the MARY WHALEN, PortSide came ashore, quickly set up shop at 351 Van Brunt Street and proceeded to make a base - a visible and accessible storefront - from where they could reach out, provide information, resources and assistance to their land lubbing neighbors, most of us who were desperately trying to recover from the immense damage that had been done to our homes and our unique, waterfront neighborhood.
PortSide and their team of volunteers co-ordinated tradesmen to go and physically assist our residents, and they gathered and disseminated information about anything they though would be helpful - FEMA, legal assistance, insurance matters, Con Edison, National Grid, the Rapid Repairs program, etc., and provided a connection to our representatives in government. On many of these matters, PortSide organized meetings and reached out to our residents, and in the case of our street - Pioneer Street - she co-ordinated the creation of a comprehensive contact list so that everyone on our block could share information and provide support to each other. It was - and still is - a wonderful way for the residents of Pioneer Street to keep in touch and get updates on our street's recovery, with Carolina Salguero, PortSide’s Director, checking in regularly to see how things are going and, many month's later, still providing advice and information wherever and whenever she can.
Statement by Gallery Brooklyn
“Gallery Brooklyn raised over $1K from the sale of Brooklyn-born artist, Jeremy Hoffeld, whose oil paintings gave comfort to the shell-shocked residents of Red hook. The funds will be donated to the Red Hook Initiative, a non-profit organization that provides enrichment geared toward the arts for children of the Red Hook community."
About PortSide NewYork
PortSide NewYork is honored to have won a White House "Champions of Change" award for our work during and after hurricane Sandy. We hope the award will allow us to continue our Sandy-aid work, launch new resilience training programs, and attract more assistance to Red Hook. Things look promising; the phone has started to ring. Until we finish the blogpost about Part II of our Sandy story, we've added photos to a press release below to tell that story. Part I of the story, how we protected the MARY A. WHALEN from Sandy, can be read here.
PortSide NewYork educates people about the BlueSpace, the water part of the waterfront. PortSide works with the community ashore and the community afloat; our goal is to bring the two closer together, to foster their mutual understanding and to create synergies between the two. PortSide programs are diverse—they include maritime preservation, visiting vessels, arts and educational programs, community service and advocacy. What unites them is the focus on water and waterfront issues. Our mission is to bring NYC’s BlueSpace to life.
PortSide has its offices aboard a historic ship, the MARY A. WHALEN, and with her, PortSide has created the world's only oil tanker cultural center, a ship in the National Register of Historic Places. PortSide runs many programs on the MARY, and we run many off the ship as well.
PortSide NewYork is negotiating with GBX▪Gowanus Bay Terminal for a homeport in Red Hook, Brooklyn! At our prospective home, the tanker MARY A. WHALEN will be publicly accessible directly from Columbia Street across from IKEA. [Note: MARY A. WHALEN relocated to Atlantic Basin May 2015]
PortSide’s electricity on the ship was repaired after 35 nights of reliance on flashlights and one 15-amp extension cord. PortSide seeks professional conservator help with two waterlogged books from the 1850s (stored in a freezer since the flood) and restoration of the antique replacement parts for the ship’s engine which were stored in the shed.
More info
Official description of the White House Champions of Change Sandy awards
"Across the areas impacted by Hurricane Sandy, ordinary Americans are doing extraordinary, innovative things in their communities to respond to and recover from this disaster. By partnering with the whole community, we, as a nation, are better positioned to meet the unique needs of communities and neighborhoods across America."
PortSide NewYork, and the other 16 winners, were at a White House award ceremony on April 24 for a panel discussion and remarks by the head of FEMA Craig Fugate and the head of HUD Shaun Donovan. Carolina Salguero, Director of PortSide NewYork represented PortSide on the panel. A video of her remarks is here.
FEMA handled the Sandy nomination process. The head of FEMA Craig Fugate spoke at the White House Champions ceremony and explained that the awards were important for underlining how the public was now being viewed by FEMA as survivors (not victims) and partners in recovery (not just recipients of aid).
Thanks to Craig Hammerman, District Manager of Brooklyn Community Board 6 for nominating us. You can read his nomination here.
For PortSide's latest Sandy relief information, see our regularly updated blogpost and follow us on Twitter
Imagined Futures - Red Hook - with Holes in the Wall Collective
/PortSide is part of the Red Hook scavenger hunt that kicks off Saturday, 10/14/23 and runs the rest of the month. Our ship deck will be open for TankerTime on Saturday from 10am to 6pm. This is part of the Red Hook Weekend organized by Holes in the Wall Collective which launches a year-long effort. Imagined Future is about addressing climate issues and creating a more sustainable future. Here are related PortSide efforts:
Our advocacy calls for greater and more sustainable use of the waterways, the BLUEspace.
A subest of that is getting last mile, ecommerce shippers to use the waterways (marine highway), the greenest form of transportation. This would reduce fuel use, air pollution, traffic, and in Red Hook, reduce subsidence (sinking of the streets), a growing problem due to increasingly heavy rains due to climate change.
See our work on resiliency (related to water, PortSide’s mission space). This started with our Sandy recovery work which earned us a White House award. NYC flooding is getting worse due to climate change and involves groundwater, sewage, rain, and harbor water.
The U.S. Army Corps (USACE) created a draft flood protection plan (HATS) for the NYC-NJ region which only addressed flooding from the harbor. PortSide educated Red Hook and mobilized the community to push back and submit comments, and we helped get the comment period extended for NYC. See that work here.
#rethinkEDC, our campaign to reform the NYC Economic Development Corporation (NYC EDC), a quasi-governmental organization that is PortSide’s landlord and NYC’s largest landlord and does many projects that City agencies used to do. The EDC does NOT fulfill promises to Red Hook (including space for a fully-realized PortSide). The EDC is also NOT doing economic development for Red Hook; they are extractive (keeping all the money they earn here and not investing any back into Red Hook). The EDC runs the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, Atlantic Basin with the boats on Pier 11 (including our MARY A. WHALEN), the huge Pier 11 warehouse, all the bus and truck parking on the east side of that warehouse, and the NYC Ferry system. The EDC earned money off the Formula E car race.
our historic ship MARY A. WHALEN, last of her kind in the USA, on the National Register of historic places, a beloved floating cultural center, and home world-famous shipcat Chiclet.
youth education programs - educating the next generation
African American Maritime Heritage - inspiring people today by recovering erased history
You can help by getting involved! Please see our webpage volunteer.
Holes in the Wall Collective is putting together a weekend of Red Hook programming about the realities and hopes for a thrivable climate future October 13th-15th as part of our Imagined Futures. Imagined Futures is a year-long, city-wide initiative working in 5 NYC neighborhoods, partnering with 5 local breweries to raise money and elevate the stores of 5 New Yorkers and bring issues out of academic and think tank spaces. It begins in Red Hook, with Karen Blondel, recent winner of The David Prize and President of the Red Hook Houses West Residents Association at a Friday, 5pm event at Strong Rope. The effort will also raise awareness of endeavors in the 5 communities that work to create the future we want to see “Imagined Futures.” They say:
“Red Hook is an extraordinary microcosm of a neighborhood both uniquely vulnerable to climate change and an example of creative resilience and resourcefulness… We're putting together a walking tour, talks and interactive installations to get us in the big questions of housing/ new economies/ community resilience/ displacement, creative adaptations.”
By 3/31/23, US Army Corps HATS flood plan needs to hear from you
/Updates since close of comment period
11/15/23 press release from officeof Congressman Dan Goldman:
In short: the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) invoked the agency’s role as formal non-federal sponsor of HATS. NYS DEC’s letter to USACE triggers a federal requirement that HATS include comprehensive flood protection (not just protection for storm surge/harbor seawater overriding the shoreline.)
STATEMENT FROM CONGRESSMAN DAN GOLDMAN ON NEW YORK STATE REQUIREMENTS FOR COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH TO US ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS FLOOD PROTECTION PLAN
Washington, D.C. – Congressman Dan Goldman (NY-10) today issued the following statement after the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) sent a letter requiring the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to revise their $52.6 billion New York and New Jersey Harbor and Tributaries Study (HATS) storm surge protection plan to include a comprehensive approach to address a multitude of flooding risks. This announcement comes after Congressman Dan Goldman and Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez led twelve Members of Congress from New York and New Jersey in sending a bipartisan letter to the USACE expressing concern that the Corps plan to address flood risk insufficiently protects New York and New Jersey against multiple varieties of flooding.
“I am thrilled that the New York State DEC formally requested that USACE revise their flood protection plan to include a comprehensive approach to flood risks across the New York and New Jersey harbor and tributaries.
“While the initial proposal failed to sufficiently address the flooding risks faced by our communities, I am encouraged at the hope for a revised plan that will protect New York and New Jersey’s coastal communities.
“Our states face a multitude of flooding risks, including not only storm surge but tidal and river flooding, heavy rainfall, groundwater emergence, erosion, and sea level rise. To ignore these flooding threats that endanger our region would be an irresponsible use of taxpayer dollars.
“I am pleased to see that the New York State DEC has heeded the calls to ensure our communities receive comprehensive flood protection in accordance with federal laws. With this important letter from DEC, I expect USACE to promptly issue comprehensive implementation guidance and not delay compliance with the Water Resources Development Acts any longer. This must include a period of public review and comment to ensure that this revised plan adequately addresses community concerns.
“Disadvantaged communities across our region must receive proper protection from all forms of flooding, and they must be included in reviewing and considering these plans. I look forward to working with all stakeholders to ensure that the new plan is comprehensive and has the best interest of New Yorkers at its core.”
9/13/23 excerpt from press release from office of Congressman Dan Goldman:
CONGRESSMAN DAN GOLDMAN AND CONGRESSWOMAN NYDIA VELÁZQUEZ LEAD MEMBERS OF CONGRESS IN DEMANDING COMPREHENSIVE FLOOD PROTECTION FOR NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY
Upcoming U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Flood Protection Plan Only Protects Against Storm Surge, Neglects Tidal and River Flooding, Heavy Rainfall, Erosion, and Sea Level Rise Threats
Members Urging U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to Update Protection Plan, Bring into Compliance with Water Resources Development Act and Justice40 Initiative
Read the Letter Here
Brooklyn, NY – Congressman Dan Goldman (NY-10) and Congresswoman Nydia M. Velázquez (NY-13) today led twelve Members of Congress from New York and New Jersey in sending a bi-partisan letter to the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) expressing concern that the Corps plan to address flood risk insufficiently protects New York and New Jersey against multiple varieties of flooding. The upcoming plan fails to address tidal and river flooding, heavy rainfall, groundwater emergence, erosion, and sea level rise. Their plan also does not comply with the Water Resources Development Acts (WRDA) of 2020 and 2022 or President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative (J40).
“With the passage of WRDA, Congress directed the Army Corps to formulate a plan that protects the region from tidal and river flooding, heavy rainfall, groundwater emergence, erosion, sea level rise and storm surge,” wrote the Lawmakers. “However, after seven years of planning, the Army Corps is proposing to spend $52.6 billion to protect our constituents from only one kind of flooding - storm surge. Members of Congress worked diligently to pass WRDA on behalf of our constituents in communities that remain vulnerable to multiple flood threats, and we urge HATS to comply. To ignore the more frequent flooding threats that plague our region is an irresponsible use of taxpayer dollars.”
In the letter, the Members list actions that they would like USACE to take to better protect millions of residents in the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area from flooding:
Promptly issue implementation guidance on applicable directives in 2020 and 2022 WRDA legislation;
Factor that guidance into the current draft environmental impact study (DEIS) to conduct additional analyses and develop additional alternatives;
Ensure that disadvantaged communities are properly protected; and
Issue a Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for public review and comment before reaching the Agency Decision Milestone.
The New York-New Jersey Harbor and Tributaries Focus Area Feasibility Study (HATS), and its upcoming Agency Decision Milestone (ADM), tentatively scheduled for release this summer, does not comply with the Water Resources Development Acts (WRDA) of 2020 and 2022 or President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative (J40).
In addition to Velázquez and Goldman, this letter was signed by Representatives Yvette Clarke (NY-09), Adriano Espaillat (NY-13), Hakeem Jefferies (NY-08), Michael Lawler (NY-17), Greogory Meeks (NY-05), Grace Meng (NY-06), Jerrold Nadler (NY-12), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), Donald Payne (NJ-10), Patrick Ryan (NY-18), Paul Tonko (NY-20), and Ritchie Torres (NY-15).
The comment period closed. Below is our work until that deadline
PortSide’s comment is here. We continued working on this after posting a draft comment here on 3/29.
The deadline for comments is 3/31/23. If you don’t speak up, you can’t be heard! Please submit comments. See the tips for making comments below. You don’t need to be an expert. Express concerns if you have them, suggestions if you have them.
PortSide Zoom - learn more about alternatives to USACE HATS plan:
Don’t like The Big Grey Wall proposed by USACE HATS?
Learn about alternatives!
The recording, chat and transcription for the Zoom on 3/20/23 are in Dropbox at the same link used to register www.bit.ly/ALTresiliency. Download the one-page PDF in there; it’s a handy intro to all this.
Presentation by Belgian firm Aggeres of their surge-powered flood barriers (SCFB)
Presentation of landscape architecture resiliency by Walter Meyer and Tom Asbery from LOCAL
Screening 9-minute segment of this TEDx presentation about “Red Hook Island” – a barrier island proposal by Red Hook resident Alex Washburn
3/7/23 BREAKING NEWS! The deadline for comments has been extended to 3/31/23.
The USACE presented at a Zoom Town Hall, Monday 3/6/23, 7pm hosted by Congressman Dan Goldman and Brooklyn Community Board 6.
Recording and presentation and Zoom chat are here.
Issues we raised at that Town Hall are here. We have yet to write a final comment.
Brooklyn Paper article about that Town Hall is here.
Thanks to CB6 and Congressman Dan Goldman for hosting this Town Hall. Thanks to Congressmembers Dan Goldman and Nydia Velazquez for getting the Army Corps to do this - finally - and for getting the extension of the comment deadline.
March 31, 2023 is the newly extended deadline for comments on a MASSIVE $52 billion plan for flood protection by the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) called HATS, short for Harbor and Tributaries Focus Area Feasibility Study.
The catch? The thing is 569 pages long, and it’s webpage has additional documents, videos, and interactive pages! In total, it is 4,000 pages.
Send comments to nynjharbor.tribstudy@usace.army.mil
The website is here.
The 569 page plan is here.
What they call the Readers Guide is contents, a description of which document (website link) contains what. Since some of those links have no description in the name, this is key to finding stuff.
The interactive NYNJHAT Study StoryMap is here.
Their glossary of acronyms is here.
Pg 7 of Sub-appendix B1: Shore-Based Measures has a map showing the different kind of structures “measures” proposed to protect Red Hook and their locations.
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Mr. Bryce W. Wisemiller
Project Manager
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers New York District
Jacob K. Javits Federal Building, Room 17-401
c/o PSC Mail Center
26 Federal Plaza
New York, NY 10278
917-790-8307
nynjharbor.tribstudy@usace.army.milMs. Cheryl R. Alkemeyer
NEPA Lead
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers New York District
Jacob K. Javits Federal Building, Room 17-420
c/o PSC Mail Center
26 Federal Plaza
New York, ny 10278
917-790-8723 nynjharbor.tribstudy@usace.army.mil
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See the guide here.
At right, that big grey wall is what they are proposing for much of Red Hook. A flood gate would go at the mouth of the Gowanus Canal.
This “Floodwall Concept for Coffey Street and Ferris Street” shows they need to make a 25’ wide trench and have to drive piles 75’ deep to support these walls. Red Hook buildings have cracked during recent pile driving for new construction. These flood barriers look to involve driving a LOT of steel H-piles. Would vibrations from installing piles this deep damage buildings? One negative impact looks certain, such a deep, wide, long installation along Beard Street would cause traffic gridlock in Red Hook due to how it would likely reroute and delay the last mile trucks using the two Amazon facilities on Beard Street, plus IKEA shoppers.
For years, PortSide has asked if surge-powered flood barriers such as the Aggeres SCFB in the video below could work in NYC. In the video, incoming flood waters push the flood barrier up! We’d like the SCFB and other non-permanent barriers assessed, so we had Aggeres present during our 3/20/23 Zoom, linked above.
A 2/22/23 email from Aggeres says “We engineered the SCFB barrier up to 3m high (which is feasible). In theory the barrier could even be higher, but then many other factors must be taken into account (foundation, very large concrete basins, etc). We have installed barriers up to 2m protection height.” Here is an engineering animation of how the SCFB works.
The plan the USACE has tentatively selected, called Alternative 3B, proposes a 14-year construction project with 12 storm surge gates around waterways of the NYC region such as the Gowanus Canal, Newtown Creek and near the Verrazano Bridge). It would also create barriers along 41+ miles of NYC’s shoreline, including seawalls and floodwalls in Red Hook and elsewhere in south Brooklyn, Lower Manhattan, East Harlem, and all of the Rockaway Peninsula
You can see 3B, the Tentatively Selected Plan (TSP), running through Red Hook below. This is from Pg 7 of Sub-appendix B1: Shore-Based Measures. The circles in the colored lines are the only places they have planned an opening in the barrier wall.
PortSide has focused on resiliency topics for the decade since Sandy; but we do NOT have time right now to digest and summarize 569 pages for you – we have to deal with our campaign #rethinkEDC, and work on our own Sandy recovery since FEMA gave us a deadline of 7/31/23 to finish the project. So… here’s what we’re offering you:
1. Honesty about our limitations on this as per above.
2. The info bove and below. Request for comments to the blogpost that we can incorporate to improve this resource.
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We did word searches. Red Hook is mentioned 18 times. Sunset Park, our neighbors across Gowanus Bay and part of our City Council district D38, only got mentioned 2 times (both about rail yards). Gowanus is mentioned 25 times. See page 13.
NYCHA is mentioned only once ☹ and for something in Manhattan.
Page 6 is overview map of the whole thing.
Page 8 Project Cost includes item Cultural Resource Preservation.
Page 220 shows RH map and barrier locations.
Here’s a one pager showing a Red Hook flood wall section at Ferris and Coffey Street next to Valentino Park.
Pg 160 summary of Red Hook’s resiliency projects – this does not mention the HUGE resiliency project underway to protect the NYCHA properties (Red Hook Houses East and Red Hook Houses West)
“Red Hook, Brooklyn, NY The City of New York is expected to complete the design phase of the Red Hook Coastal Resiliency Project (RHCR) by the end of 2022. RHCR is an integrated coastal protection system for more frequent, lower intensity coastal storm surges and tidal flooding. Community engagement is a key component for project development since the earliest stages of project feasibility. The project has also aimed to maintain access to the waterfront, and create improved public spaces in response to six years of community engagement. The Red Hook Coastal Resiliency Project will be a critical step toward ensuring a more resilient Red Hook community in the face of future extreme weather and a changing climate.”
Pg 219 “The Gowanus Canal storm surge barrier would provide coastal storm risk management in the neighborhoods of Gowanus, Red Hook, and Park Slope, Brooklyn (Figure 49). The storm surge barrier would include a navigable miter gate. It would span approximately 200 feet from shore to shore and would have one gated navigable passage 100 feet wide, with a sill elevation at -21 feet NAVD88. The proposed structure crest elevation is +16 feet NAVD88. On the east side of the storm surge barrier, shore-based measures such as deployable flood barriers and floodwalls tie into higher ground. On the west side of this storm surge barrier, shore-based measures are proposed to provide flood risk reduction for the Red Hook neighborhood and are placed in proximity to, or at the coastal edge. These shore-based measures may potentially include seawalls, levees, floodwalls, and deployable flood barriers.”
Pg 248 & 241 show that one concern/motive of theirs is to keep water from getting in the Battery Tunnel and BQE trench near here: “major vehicular tunnels in the Study Area would also be increasingly exposed to coastal flood risk in the future without-project condition”
under Surface Roads “For example, the proposed alignment of shore-based measures in the Red Hook neighborhood in Brooklyn includes several vehicular gates that, when deployed, would block vehicular, bicycle, and pedestrian traffic.”
Pg 482 Summary of Construction Footprint and Operations and Maintenance Impacts Associated with the TSP (Alternative 3B) on Roads, Bridges, and Tunnels. For example, the proposed alignment of shore-based measures in the Red Hook neighborhood in Brooklyn includes several vehicular gates that, when deployed, would block vehicular, bicycle, and pedestrian traffic.
Pg 520 Impacts Associated with the Alternative 3B on Schools “There are four public schools in the storm surge barrier managed risk area of Red Hook, Brooklyn.” Do public schools only count?! How about the 3 other schools (2 charter, 1 private), and we count 3 public schools not 4.
Pg 524 Summary of Historic Properties. We note that the list does NOT include a category for National Register ships! Red Hook has two, our MARY A. WHALEN and the LEHIGH VALLEY 79 of the Waterfront Museum. We note low income communities like ours DO have historic properties but that listing them doesn’t happen much in our kinds of neighborhoods, plus the local NYC preservation process, the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), has NOT been receptive to Red Hook efforts to landmark buildings (Todd Pump House, Todd Graving Dock, Bowne Storehouse, Lidgerwood), and many historic structures were leveled to make space for last mile centers. However, we do still have historic properties listed (the Parks Rec Center) and unlisted (brick and stone warehouses by the water in particular). In short, privileged communities get preservation; low-income communities of color don’t. Does the Justice40 Initiative of the White House come into play here?
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Monday 3/6/23, 7pm, at a meeting co-hosted by CB6 and Congressman Dan Goldman’s office, the Army Corps (USACE) presented at a Zoom Town Hall
• Recording and presentation and Zoom chat are here.
• Issues PortSide raised at that Town Hall are here. We have yet to write a final comment.
• Brooklyn Paper article about that Town Hall is here.
Rebuild by Design has a webpage with 8 videos
1 hour and 15 minutes webinar recorded February 22, 2023 with Gowanus Canal Conservancy on the panel along with Hudson Riverkeeper, Newtown Creek Alliance, Baykeeper, Miami Waterkeeper
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See PortSide’s history in Red Hook WaterStories here.
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See the USACE one-pager on their EJ position and Justice40 here.
It says “If there is a localized concern regarding the plan that might impact a disadvantaged portion of your community, we want to know! Comments Please!
Send comments with subject line EJ to nynjharbor.tribstudy@usace.army.mil
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There is opposition to HATS from environmental groups. We share this Gothamist article without endorsement (as we said up top, we have not had time to drill down on this).
Marine Highway 101 for last mile planning
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Concerned about truck traffic resulting from ecommerce warehouses being built near you? Thinking that moving that stuff by water instead of truck could help? Trying to understand how maritime freight works? Confused by maritime jargon? This page is for you.
Read MoreOur exciting business plan! and updates!
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Get the update on our business plan! An innovative, forward-looking maritime center in Red Hook, Brooklyn!
Read MorePortSide tribute & thanks to Bonnie Aldinger
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Bonnie aldinger kayaking, April 2021, by carolina salguero
PortSide thanks to Bonnie Aldinger
We were devastated when breast cancer felled Bonnie Aldinger on 1/12/22. She was a friend, an inspiration, and one of PortSide’s longest-standing volunteers and supporters, having got in touch due to our Kayak Valet event in 2006. Over the following 16 years, she volunteered, donated, and supported us with blogposts and free photo services. She was a radiant light of eternal good cheer, smart, principled, hardworking, a fighter for social justice. After she passed, we learned that she bequeathed $9,147 to PortSide NewYork. Thank you, Bonnie! You are so missed!
Please read more about her in our our tribute below.
Bonnie is on the table in the galley of the mary whalen
Originally, Bonnie’s creative outpouring went into the blog Frogma here, but she used Facebook more after a Wordpress redesign.
Bonnie’s own Facebook page remains as a legacy here.
Bonnie was a member of the wonderful Sebago Canoe Club. They memorialized her on May 21, 2022, and we attended instead of running TankerTours that day, the date our ship MARY A. WHALEN was launched. A summary of their deeply moving Bonnie memorial activities is below our tribute.
PortSide tribute to Bonnie Aldinger
Copying text from our January 14, 2022 Facebook post below. That post is here if you want to share it or see the moving comments of appreciation there.
NY harbor has many lights, and one has just gone out.
Bonnie K. Aldinger’s writing and photography illuminated the harbor, and Bonnie has transitioned to the Sebago in the sky.
Bonnie got in touch with PortSide in 2006 when she heard we were running a Kayak Valet event, the K word getting her attention. Since then, she volunteered here on physical tasks and supported us via so many blogposts.
Bonnie was all over the harbor for years and is beloved because of her radiant positivity while involved with waterfront nonprofits, businesses, boat clubs, and list serves. She had an endlessly upbeat approach to everyone and everything everywhere. She worked for Classic Harbor Line, volunteered many places, was a devoted member of the Sebago Canoe Club, and on her own, kayaked and camped down hundreds of miles of the Hudson River.
She was propelled by more than her paddle on those trips; she was propelled by joy and curiosity, and she then shared that with the rest of us in words and photos on her blog www.frogma.blogspot.com and Facebook page.
Fish, birds, water, weather, the skies, sunsets, boats of all kinds, the history and the future of the harbor, and seals sparked her enthusiasm. Did anything not? And flowers and food; don’t forget the food! Lots of posts about growing and cooking food.
April last year, weakened when her cancer recurred in March, Bonnie still wanted to get out on the water. I picked her up in a borrowed car; she was avoiding public transportation to protect her immune system ravaged by cancer and chemo. She wanted to see seals in Jamaica Bay. She wasn’t sure she could paddle that far. She made it, they were there, and she was jubilant. She probably would have been jubilant even if they weren’t there as enthusiasm was her engine.
She inspired me to start kayaking. I will be grateful for that for the rest of my life. PortSide’s yellow kayak will now be named BONNIE, and I hope we can inject Bonnie’s love of kayaking into others via that boat.
Bonnie was from Hawaii, and though not native Hawaiian, she expressed perfectly their term of aloha: “Aloha is an essence of being: love, peace, compassion, and a mutual understanding of respect. Aloha means living in harmony with the people and land around you with mercy, sympathy, grace, and kindness. When greeting another person with aloha, there is mutual regard and affection. This extends with warmth in caring for the other with no obligation to receive anything in return. The direct translation from Hawaiian to English is the presence of divine breath."
In the last days of December, she started home hospice without announcing that publicly, and posted joyful reminiscences on Facebook. Then, on 12/29/21, Bonnie revealed on Facebook that her end was near, apologizing for not being able to respond to everyone in this time and not wanting to be a downer “I have been trying not to make a big deal of it here on FB and also trying to keep things cheerful.” Love gushed back in the comments, and Elel Calabasas spoke for us all saying, “Bonnie, I have NEVER seen your strength, positivity, and pure aloha matched anywhere. You are forever the ichiban numero uno top banana of awesome. ”
She made her last post on 1/8/22, updating her cover photo with a shot she took showing her kayak bow heading out into Jamaica Bay with a flock of paddlers. I took it as a post expressing that she was leaving on her last voyage. Joy, excitement, sharing, caring for others, even in her last days.
She showed us how to kayak, and she showed us how to travel that last stretch of life.
With love and admiration forever, Carolina Salguero
Photos of Bonnie at PortSide below: stopping by at the end of her solo 7-day paddle down the Hudson. Three photos of her., dirty, busy and happy, helping move vintage engine parts from the Pier 9B warehouse onto our ship in preparation for moving to Pier 11.
Sebago Canoe Club Tribute to Bonnie Aldinger, May 21, 2022
May 21, 2022 was an emotional day at Sebago, their season opening day was dedicated to Bonnie Aldinger.
There were two paddling trips leaving in the morning, followed by lunch with rememberances, and a ceremony on the floating dock. Many people created ways to memorialize Bonnie Aldinger. Her blog name FROGMA was put on a sail. Vicki brought a plate of sea shells from around the world and invited people to toss one into the water as they thought about Bonnie. One of her friends in the Irish music scene played music as we queued up for the buffet. Our ED Carolina Salguero remembered Bonnie’s excitement about the Hawaiian sailing canoe Hokulea coming to NYC and made a Polynesian sailing canoe model out of driftwood and natural materials that would decay into the Jamaica Bay Bonnie loved so much.
Conversations were long, deep, and loving, and many stories were shared.
Carolina’s memorial canoe
6/23/22 Red Hook last mile, ecommerce meeting
/During the pandemic, a huge surge in building last mile, ecommerce facilities occured in our neighborhood of Red Hook and just across the Gowanus Bay in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. This is part of a citywide and national pattern.
Thursday, 6/23/22, 5-7pm, a meeting on last mile, ecommerce facilities in Red Hook was hosted by our Councilmember Alexa Aviles and Brooklyn Community Board 6 (CB6). See CB6 last mile resource page here.
There was no offical virtual component planned, so PortSide was asked to livestream this by community members behind RHAFTS (Red Hook Advocates For Traffic Solutions). We streamed it and share our Zoom video and chat below, along with the video recording by Red Hook resident Mike McCabe of Occupy Radio. Two RHAFTS members monitored the chat in the PortSide Zoom, the person using the name Carolina Salguero in the chat is Alyce Erdekian using our account. Carolina was running the cellphone camera.
There were three official presenters:
New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYC EDC or EDC)
The meeting had 3 breakout groups and McCabe’s camera was sometimes in a different group that our cellphone camera handled by our ED Carolina Salguero, so the content of the two documentations is not exactly the same.
There was an updated agenda in the presentation
Land Use & Zoning with DCP, EDC and DOT, facilitator Christina Bottego of CM Alexa Aviles’ office
Transportation Strategies & Infrastructure with DOT and EDC, facilitator SG (we don’t have full name)
Community Engagement Needs, facilitator Bryan Gross, of CM Alexa Aviles’ office
PortSide NewYork coverage
video of the meeting (Zoom); passcode: 7$93Z9Dh. It was useful to have this live option, but the wifi was poor and the sound is poor. Better viewing for after the event is Mike McCabe’s below.
Link to Zoom chat file from the meeting; passcode: 7$93Z9Dh
Edited version of chat file (pdf) with chatter about poor sound quality removed - complete chat file is with the video.
Mike McCabe coverage
Official presentations (pdfs)
The PDFs below are scans of hardcopies. We have requested native/original digital copies because text in this kind of PDF is not searchable, can’t be readily copied, and the complicated maps are harder to read and can’t be readily copied and shared. We will update this page when we get them.
NYC Department of Planning presentation DCP’s role in this topic centers around zoning and land-use with a lot of community pushback on the concept that huge last mile, ecommerce fullfillment centers should be “as of right,” eg. needing no special permits or review.
NYC DOT presentation On this topic, DOT is involved for handling road traffic and its impacts, truck routes, the location and safety of curb cuts, and developing new loading/unloading zones on the street for last mile users. The DOT traffic focus is on traffic on the land, whereas the role of NYC EDC below on this topic is more about use of the waterways to move freight.
NYC EDC presentation The EDC is less known to many people than the DOT or City Planning. The EDC is a large nonprofit, quasi-governmental organization with a huge portfolio of City projects. On this topic, they are often referring to waterborne, maritime options, eg, “the marine highway.” This relates to their role running the NYC Ferry system with the idea that those boats could move freight at night, their role running many city piers via the DockNYC program (PortSide’s ship MARY A. WHALEN is on a DockNYC pier) where those docks could handle inbound or outbound last mile freight, and their role in doing freight planning via the FreightNYC program. Bear in mind that policy papers like FreightNYC are vision and priority statements not detailed operational (action) plans, and that the EDC has a track record of more study than action.
Look for a forthcoming PortSide blogpost explaining all things “marine highway.” For now, the MARAD (federal DOT Maritime Administration) webpage about that is here.
None of the 3 Powerpoints aboved was designed in a way to be easily readable when projected at a public meeting: the fonts were way too small, there was way too much on each page. Even in the front row, it was a strain to the text in the bullet points, and the keys in the color coded maps were impossible to read. We recommend that City presenters design Powerpoints for public meetings that can be read at public meetings!
We suggested to CB6 and Councilmember staff that that the presentations be provided by email BEFORE the meeting so people can actually see and read it and thus more of the meeting can be spent on informed discussion. If not, much of the meeting is spent conveying the official point of view, and a lot of community time is spent on things such as “what’s that slide say?”
Check the new RHAFTS website for lots of info. Contact them at RHAFTS123@gmail.com
Trucks on Van Brunt Street in red hook 6/21/22
see MAIDEN, the racing yacht educating & inspiring girls, Wed 6/22, 9am-1pm
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Tracy Edwards (L) and Mikaela Von Koskull (R) sailing in the Whitbread Race
Here is a great opportunity from PortSide! Meet a woman captain and female boat crew fighting sexism and inspiring girls around the world.
The racing yacht MAIDEN is coming to PortSide Wednesday 6/22/22 from 9am to 1pm. RSVP asap to chiclet@portsidenewyork.org.
We ask that groups RSVP with the number of people and approximate time of your visit so that we can make plans to accommodate all smoothly and not over book. Note that schools have been invited to attend. If you have flexibility in your schedule as to what time you can be here, pleaes give us the details as we may ask you to adjust your schedule if you are coming at a projected peak visitor time.
MAIDEN is famous for competing in the Whitbread Round the World race in 1989/1990 skippered by Tracy Edwards MBE. Tracy was expelled from school at 16; and at 26, she organized and skippered the first all-female crew in the Whitbread race after having sailed that race one time as a cook. Tracy and her crew faced rampant sexism (many men thought they would never survive, forget win two legs of the race); and a few years ago, Tracy started the nonprofit Maiden Factor Foundation to use the boat to empower girls via education by sailing around the world, inspiring girls where ever they stop. The boat is in NYS during June as part of their round-the-world tour.
About facing the sexism in sailing back in the 1980s Tracy said, "if the world doesn’t exist as I want it to exist, then I need to change it.”
Come meet Tracy and the women who sail MAIDEN now. The experiences being offered:
The 58' MAIDEN will tie up next to PortSide's flagship ship MARY A. WHALEN in Red Hook. Students will be able to see MAIDEN from the deck of our ship.
Meet Tracy Edwards.
Talk to the women crew of MAIDEN who will explain their maritime jobs and skills (a lot of STEM), why they do this, what it's like to sail the open ocean where waves can be as high as the boat is long and answer questions.
Students can ask the crew about the experience of girls and women in the countries they are from and the countries MAIDEN has visited with them aboard. Plus, ask whatever you want!
Maritime skills (knot tying, handling rope, etc.) will be demonstrated.
We will screen MAIDEN videos inside the MARY A. WHALEN as an immersion experience (visiting for a short stint to get a taste of MAIDEN not sitting down to see it all.)
Maritime twofer! First-time visitors to our ship MARY A. WHALEN will be able to have a look around. We will not give tours of our ship at this time, but our crew will be on hand to answer some questions.
More about Tracy Edwards, MAIDEN and their foundation at links below:
MAIDEN Factor Foundation website
Trailer for 2019 movie about MAIDEN
TEDtalk by Captain Tracy Edwards
Review of that movie by New York Times 6/6/19
Royal Yachting Association video
New Yorker article 7/9/19
Please share this and RSVP asap to chiclet@portsidenewyork.org.
Open to all genders.
If you want to volunteer to help run the event, please let us know.
Directions to PortSide here.
Hope to see you aboard!
Tracy Edwards (silver hair) greeting MAIDEN crew in NYC by Peter Rothenberg/PortSide
MAIDEN arriving in NYC at 5pm yesterday by Carolina Salguero/PortSide
Help make Red Hook more resilient on Thurs 3/17
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front of resiiency postcard portside will be distributing during 2022. back of postcard is at bottom of blogpost
Dear Red Hook friends,
PortSide has an opportunity to work with a group of visiting High School students who will distribute poscards with flood prep info arojund Red Hook on Thursday morning March 17. There is a Facebook event at https://fb.me/e/4tr9QIRPi you can share.
We are especially interested in getting High School students involved so that they get a cultural exchange experience of working with the visitors while helping those visitors understand Red Hook and find their way around.
Would you like to get involved? If so, please RSVP asap to chiclet@portsidenewyork.org. Please share this blogpost!
Thursday, 3/17 Schedule
9:30 am 45 minutes orientation presentation about Red Hook’s Sandy story with time for QnA.
10:15 am 15 minute break and time to get postcards, Red Hook maps and clipboards to students
10:30 am Head out to distribute postcards and do some surveys
12:00 pm Debriefing session, recording a video of student impressions and feedback
1:00 pm Lunch
1-3 and 5 take place in the office suite at the SE corner of the Pier 11 warehouse. That is between our ship MARY A. WHALEN and Pioneer Street. Thanks to Formula E for the use of this office space.
We seek people for the following roles:
A Red Hook business owner who was here during Sandy.
More People to accompany the visiting students as they distribute postcards (see photos top and bottom)
Program and backstory.
PortSide was approached by CAStrips, an international organization that organizes school field trips. They are bringing 30 students from the Houston International School Awty to NYC to do community service and learn about infrastructure.
Since 2022, is the 10th anniversary of Sandy and we saw during hurricanes Henri and Ida last fall that Red Hook people could use info on flood prep, we proposed that the Awty students kick off PortSide’s 2022 outreach about flood prep.
PortSide is creating a postcard in English, Spanish, and Chinese to hand out around Red Hook, directing people to info we offer at https://redhookwaterstories.org/tours/show/9. The 3/17 distribution event will only reach part of Red Hook; we will focus on stores on this one.
If you can’t get involved with this event, we hope you will join a future one. CAStrips wants to send more students in May, and we hope to have all-Red Hook groups do distribution too.
Overview of the orientation speakers and content:
PortSide
NYCHA residents here during Sandy - Karen Blondel and Vanessa McKnight are speaking
Medical Matt (Matt Kraushar, MD PhD) who set up medical response corps after Sandy, mostly serving NYCHA residents. He will participate from Germany via Zoom.
Jim McMahan “Map Man” who made Red Hook’s Sandy flood map will be represented by this video
Red Hook business owner who was here during Sandy, if we get one
PortSide will talk about our experience protecting our ship from hurricane Sandy, what we learned about Red Hook damages while running our Sandy recovery center and then a virtual one and while appointed to NY Rising; resiliency planning we have done and that NYC government has planned and/or executed through the years since Sandy (some of it you can see within yards of our ship). We will refer to City-executed resiliency plans for Red Hook on this webpage. We will refer to Resiliency 101 info in our virtual museum. PortSide has a FEMA Sandy recovery project, so we can speak as a storm victim too.
Image below is the back of the postcard that will be handed out during this event, and over 2022. The front of the postcard is at top.
back of resiiency postcard portside will be distributing during 2022. frontof postcard is at top of blogpost
Did you hear what the Mayor said on Wednesday?
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April 15 Joint Public Hearing: Proposed Grade Reconfiguration of P.S. 676 from an Elementary school a Middle School Beginning in the 2022-2023 School Year and Future Re-Siting
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Thursday, 4/15/21, 6pm. SUPER IMPORTANT DOE public hearing
DOE summary of comments they received before the 4/28/21 PEP (Panel for Educational Policy) hearing and vote on zoom is here. Comments has to be submitted by April 27, 2021, at 6:00 p.m to D15Proposals@schools.nyc.gov.
The 4/15/21 hearing has passed. The recording is here and the passcode is 5N6SLKi@
We found we had to type in the passcode and could cut and paste it.
The official DOE webpage for this “school utilization” process is here. Copying the section for Red Hook from that page (in italics) below:
The Proposed Grade Reconfiguration of P.S. 676 Red Hook Neighborhood School (15K676) from a K-5 to a 6-8 School Beginning in the 2022-2023 School Year and Future Re-siting to Building K680 and Co-location with P.S. KTBD (75KTBD)
Contact: Anne McGroarty, 212-374-0208, D15Proposals@schools.nyc.gov
PortSide statements
PortSide testimony for this hearing - updated, version 2
PortSide Summary of the Situation:
Short version: PS 676 (the old 27) gets phased out as an elementary school, a new middle school with a maritime theme will built on the north edge of Coffey Park (kittycorner from Visitation Church). It will include a District 75 school (school for students with special needs). Summit Academy Charter School will remain in the building at 27 Huntington Street, and plans need to be developed for how to use the rest of the space in the building which could be used by PS 15, a new high school, and/or other ideas.
Longer version is all of the following below: Starting September 2022, the DOE will “reconfigure” PS 676 (the old 27) as an elementary school by shrinking it year by year while creating a new middle school. PS 676 will be relocated in a new school building, to be named K680, to be built at 21-31 Delevan Street, on the north edge of Coffey Park. The scheduled opening of the new school building is September 2025.
Maritime partners for the new middle school
During discussions of a maritime middle school a few years ago, the NY Harbor High School on Governors Island was very involved; they are no longer involved.
PortSide NewYork is an award-winning, maritime nonprofit, and our work includes creating innovative maritime educational programs (we call them WaterStories). We look forward to having a major role in shaping the curriculum of this new maritime middle school. We have had a big impact so far. It was our programming with PS 676 that inspired the DOE to suggest to PS 676 that they become a maritime elementary school. For more about our programs with 676 see this blogpost. More about PortSide’s education programs with other schools and age ranges on our webpage EDUCATION & YOUTH. PortSide has created deep virtual educational resources that support our school programs such as our virtual museum Red Hook WaterStories which turns all of Red Hook into a living museum and our African American Maritime Heritage resource page. Some photos of PortSide education programs with Red Hook schools below. We do programs on and off our historic ship MARY A. WHALEN (so sometimes we go on other ships as well as work ashore.) Some sample photos below with students from Red Hook schools.
How phasing out of PS 676 will work
The way the reconfiguring of PS 676 will work is that existing 676 students will advance to a higher grade normally, but when the 1st grade class graduates in 2023, there will be no new 1st grade class admitted the following year, and then the next year there will be no 2nd grade, so the school shrinks as the students advance.
In September of 2022, PS 676, would add a 6th grade and ends pre-K and kindergarten. The next year 1st grade will be dropped and a 7th grade added. This will continue each year:
• September 2023 = Grades 2 to 7
• September 2024 = Grades 3 to 8
If all goes according to the plan the school would move to the new building in September 2025
• September 2025 = Grades 4 to 8
• September 2026 = Grades 5 to 8
• September 2027 = Grades 6 to 8
The building will also house a school for children with special needs (known as a District 75 school).
According to the plan, students who fail to graduate from a grade being discontinued will be relocated to another school.
Current PS 676 students will be able to progress into the middle school instead of going through the middle school admissions process. If this proposal is approved, District 15 students will be able to enroll in middle school at P.S. 676 beginning in the 2022-2023 school year through the middle school admissions process using an open admissions method.
Use of the school building at 27 Huntington Street
Summit Academy Charter School would remain in its current building (where it is now in the old PS 27 building at 27 Huntington Street ). As to what happens to the rest of the space in that building, the EIS statement says on page 3:
“If this proposal is approved, in advance of a re-siting of PS 676 to K680, the NYCDOE will build upon the existing collaboration with CEC 15, the PAR team, and the Red Hook schools and community to develop a plan for the use of available space at K027. In the context of discussions related to this potential proposal, the NYCDOE has already been in conversation with key stakeholders to begin developing a vision for the potential space at K027, which has surfaced several ideas, such as a new district high school, early childhood programming, and/or additional space for the remaining elementary school in Red Hook, P.S. 15 Patrick F. Daly, should there be a capacity need. The NYCDOE is committed to reserving space made available by this proposal in the K027 building for a district use that is responsive to the needs of District 15 and the Red Hook community, specifically.”
The power of maritime education (WaterStories) the PortSide way
CORRECTION: Our first testimony had incorrect info in a paragraph calling for more advance notice of this hearing, omitting that CEC15 had sent a 3/19/21 email about this hearing. We deleted the incorrect info in our testimony, and revised our paragraph about the need for better outreach, which we still recommend.
PortSide 2020 summary - 3
/PortSide NewYork is a living lab for better urban waterways. We bring WaterStories to life. Our programs serve New York City (though we get national and international responses to our virtual museum Red Hook WaterStories and social media); and we have a hyperlocal focus on our neighborhood of Red Hook, Brooklyn. You can support by donating here.
A personal end-of-year message from our founder & ED Carolina Salguero
This is December blogpost #3, all about maritime accomplishments this year and plans for next: we got an new vintage engine; we got partners to launch a maritime training program; and we want to get our ship to the shipyard.
Short recap of pandemic 2020: our pier was closed due to covid; our ship is no longer publicly accessible. We pivoted both in real life and virtually and made the PortSide Pandemic PopUp Minipark outside the fence which served TENS OF THOUSANDS of people and did virtual programs of all sorts. A major one was livestreaming over 150 sunsets with narration about ships, waterfowl, weather etc. More info in December blogpost #1 and blogpost #2.
While doing all the above, I worked on a massive physical project, getting a 55,000 pound vintage engine out of a power plant about to be demolished in Kennett, Missouri. That engine could restore the engine in our flagship MARY A. WHALEN. The MARY is the last of her kind in the USA, and PortSide has made her so much more than a relic. PortSide has made the MARY an ambassador to the working waterfront, a floating classroom for students from elementary school to graduate school, and a beloved icon of the NY Harbor. We have wanted to maximize her impact by bringing her engine back to life and followed every tip about engine parts for 14 years.
As Murphy’s law would have it, the City of Kennett planned to demolish the power plant as the pandemic was at its deepest in NYC and was rolling across the USA. This continually reduced logistical options; so, for some six weeks, I did iterative planning and consultation with truckers, engineers, insurers, the Kennett power plant and its demolition crew. A pack of warm-hearted people in Kennett and elsewhere went to all sorts of trouble to support our effort. The Kennett team bent over backwards to collaborate, demolishing a city powerplant in a way that saved the massive engine (plus bird nests in the way), hire a special crane, the best local trucker and more. Our high school intern Avery Steib launched a surprise birthday fundraiser on Facebook and raised over $3,000! We raised over $13,000 in total which covered the costs of the crane to lift the engine, the truck that brought it here and a bit more to cover the creation of a restoration plan . The engine arrived on August 15. The Red Hook Container Terminal — thank you — is storing it for free, outside under a tarp, because we have no building space.
Several marine engineers are advising us, and Nobby Peers of Whitworth Marine is the lead working on plans on how to combine the rump remains of the MARY’s engine with parts from Kennett.
This is perfect timing as we have been wanting to get the MARY to the shipyard, and now we can address multiple projects at once:
the resiliency upgrades on a FEMA Sandy recovery project (delayed so we could do the 2018-19 business plan)
engine restoration work
normal hull maintenance
requirements of the Coast Guard to get “Attraction Vessel” status
PortSide was quietly in several years of negotiations with the Coast Gaurd to get this Attraction Vessel status. At first, they said the MARY was not a vessel from a regulatory point of view! We appealled that and won. Next they sent a specialist inspector to make sure the MARY was fundamentally sound. We received the approval of that inspector’s report December 2019.
For our non-mariner readers, “Attraction Vessel” is like an all-in-one Building Permit + all the City permits a business establishment needs to be able to charge for services. Once we have that status, we can FINALLY rent the MARY A. WHALEN for functions, charge for events aboard and earn money with our flagship. To maximize the revenue options, we seek some relief on red tape and the lifting of some restrictions by site managers Port Authority and NYC EDC, something else we have been negotiating for years.
Plans for a maritime training program
We will be partners in a new maritime school in this harbor, part of a two-pronged effort: a for-profit program will provide basic training and enable working mariners to maintain certifications and upgrade their licenses. The revenue from that will support our nonprofit effort to train underserved youth for deckineer licenses (deckhand + light engineer skills). PortSide has a proven track record of education programs that engage youth like this with maritime and show we are successful at youth development. The MARY A. WHALEN will be a training platform for both. Target time to launch these efforts is late 2021 if we can secure necessary seed funding. Donate now to move this along.
Trainees in the programs above can work on the engine restoration, and restoring the engine on the MARY A. WHALEN will enable our flagship to become a training ship where people get “sea time,” something necessary to get a license from the Coast Guard - a great feedback loop! As a former tanker, the ship’s cargo tanks are also an asset for training in “confined spaces;” and her large size means that the sea time aboard will support getting licenses for a wide-range of vessels. Please donate to make all this happen.
Maritime advocacy
PortSide is participating in this year’s Department of City Planning’s Comprehensive Waterfront Plan process to create Vision 2030. We beg all maritime voices to speak up. An impediment to change is the maritime industry’s tendency to stay silent. We encourage all maritime voices to push NYC to become more boat-friendly and to call for some means to mandate maritime uses on waterfront property the way that waterfront-access became mandated when there is a rezoning. The current concept of “waterfront access” means just looking at the water, not use of it. Send your ideas on how to make NYC more maritime and/or observations about impediments to Michael Marrella, Director, Waterfront & Open Space Division, NYC Department of City Planning at m_marrel@planning.nyc.gov or call (212) 720-3626. If you are on social media, join PortSide in using the hashtag #Piers4boats to raise awareness of maritime uses.
E-commerce challenge & opportunity - bring it in by water?
PortSide is in a planning dialogue with elected officials, community leaders in Red Hook and Sunset Park and our local Community Board to seek solutions for massive truck traffic anticipated from four, possibly five, ecommerce warehouses coming to Red Hook, plus two more in nearby Sunset Park (part of our same City Council district and Community Board area). We are researching the latest trends in moving freight locally by water (short sea shipping) to share with the community, policy makers, media and ecommerce companies UPS and Amazon which have warehouses being planned in Red Hook. We are in contact with the designer/operator of new hybrid ferries to create a physical boat tour and virtual webinar for community members, elected officials, media and ecommerce shippers. Please donate to support this kind of work.
red hook concerns about impending traffic from ecommerce trucks was expressed in a float at this year’s barnacle climate justice rally & march
Thanks to all those who helped!
A ship the size and age of our MARY A. WHALEN has a lot of needs. Plus, we have small boats, a floating dock and more stuff. Interns and volunteers disappeared once the pandemic hit NYC. We are grateful for the people who showed up once re-opening began, but the pandemic told us what we already knew: we need a larger budget to have paid maintenance staff. Donating now will help make this happen. Thanks, in the order they first appear, to Avery Steib, Nobby Peers of Whitworth Marine, Tom Senenfelder, Alex Troesch, Peter Rothenberg, Carolina Salguero, Frank Hanavan, Nikki and Ivy Bartlett, Paul Strubeck, Annie Raso, Samantha Wolinski, and Joseph Olson.
In sum, during difficult 2020, PortSide did a lot despite deep funding cuts and drop in personnel caused by the pandemic. We have great plans for 2021 and beyond and ask for your support to enable us to maintain and grow our impactful work. Thanks in advance for your support! Info on how to donate here.
Celebrating the new engine parts
red hook sunsets are made for sharing - view from the mary a. whalen
chiclet says “stay warm, stay safe this holidday season!”
PortSide 2020 summary - 2nd installment
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9/5/20 intense use of portside’s pandemic popup minipark in 4 parking spaces next to our flagship mary a. whalen
PortSide NewYork is a living lab for better urban waterways. We bring WaterStories to life. Our programs serve New York City (though we get national and international responses to our virtual museum Red Hook WaterStories and social media); and we have a hyperlocal focus on our neighborhood of Red Hook, Brooklyn. Please support by donating now.
A personal end-of-year message from our founder & ED Carolina Salguero
If you missed the 1st of 4 December 2020 newsletters click here and here is its related blogpost.
As mentioned last post, ravaging 2020 presented PortSide with questions about how to program once our pier was locked to the public, once I had Covid, when interns and volunteers become unavailable, when we lack building space, and with our funding slashed and ship insurance cost rising. Below, in installment 2, are ways we did that after our early focus on virtual programs (livestreaming the sunset, curating virtual content from around the world, and extensive community networking and planning on Zoom including recruiting medical assistance for Red Hook).
Two things inspire us to pivot
By early May, New Yorkers were inching out of their apartments and looking for outdoor space where they could be socially distant. I spotted a crying man hanging on the fence next to our ship, mothers with tots picnicking on asphalt, people lying on asphalt, people perched on Jersey barriers eating their lunch, a lot of nervousness.
We got a call from opera director Beth Greenberg, who directed our knockout 2007 TankerOpera. She asked if the Santa Fe Opera could perform on our ship a new opera about Fannie Lou Hamer, a trailblazing, Black civil rights activist, for national virtual distribution. All socially-distanced with singers in special masks. We have an African American maritime heritage program, but Fannie had no WaterStories in her history as far as Peter and I could see.
After a week of thinking it over, we decided PortSide could, during the pandemic, drop the rule that our programs need to have WaterStories. We have outdoor space on our ship deck while all opera houses and performing arts places are closed (from concert halls to bars) — it was time to share — and there is a huge empty parking lot next to our ship.
We said yes to Greenberg and Santa Fe. Their October performance was performed after lots of Covid-safety checking and permit arrangements and intense logistical work to arrange noise abatement from the Manhattan heliport, the ferries, the truck driving school and more. The resulting film is being used around the USA for free educational programs until end of September 2021. Below is a 60-second teaser.
THOUSANDS served! PortSide’s Pandemic PopUp Minipark
33,000 riders of the Governors Island Ferry came through here.
At least half got a seat or used the sprinkler.
LOTS of people came specifically for the popup park and the music events that occured here.
I called Ports America, the operators of the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal on the pier parallel to ours to ask if we could use the four parking spaces parallel to the fence and our ship in their parking lot. They said yes, greenlighting PortSide’s Pandemic PopUp Minipark. With our pier locked due to Covid, our popular TankerTime was not an option, so we moved ashore.
A major motive for making the park was the local open space crisis mentioned last blogpost, over 90% of the trees and all the lawns, playgrounds and sprinklers had been removed from Red Hook NYCHA public housing for a huge resiliency project. Many nonprofits had interior spaces too small to use during covid and faced big budget cuts, so local nonprofits faced challenges serving the community, and the budget was cut for Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) leaving many youth with nowhere to go. How to create Red Hook outdoor space was the urgent subject of many Zoom calls with local leaders.
Conditions in red hook nycha development due to massive sandy resiliency project. 90% of trees cut. All playgrounds, sprinklers and lawns removed
PortSide has relevant placemaking skills after years of making pop-up exhibits and events and because we have long made plans for positioning Atlantic Basin as the maritime gateway to Red Hook. With those skills, our maritime artifacts and event supplies, donated planters from a neighbor forced out by the pandemic, IKEA’s donation of a row of outdoor umbrellas, and just $1,000, we created a minipark next to our ship that has served THOUSANDS of people and has been a magnet for musicians of diverse sorts. PortSide consistently does a lot with a little.
PortSide’s flagship mary a. whalen & pandemic popup minipark alongside. Photo (c) Jonathan atkin www.shipshooter.com
Musicians were eager, desperate, to play together and to play for a live audience. The public was desperate to hear them. Multiple people told me, their voices often choking up, “this is the first time I have heard live music since March.”
If you ever doubted the power of the arts, this pandemic shows how much they matter.
Donate now to help us keep this up.
Here are some cultural events in our popup park:
(7) Weekly/Sunday performances by band Kings Country. Here is one.
(5) multimedia music events curated by Chris Pitsiokos. Here is one.
(2) Sacred Harp shape note singing events. Here is one
(1) Brackish Brooklyn concert
(1) RC Andrés concert
(4) rehearsals of Cora Dance 10/22 thru 10/25
Halloween pumpkin carving event
PortSide kept adding amenities to the popup park… a sprinkler, chalk, kids toys and books - a steady stream are donated - a mock wheelhouse created by our clever Peter Rothenberg, a bike track and hopscotch spray-painted onto the asphalt, and string lights along the fence at night. Our ship cat Chiclet is the official park host and popular presence. 🐾 We contacted Red Hook businesses to create this list of ones that would deliver here (which supports them and the visitors). Please donate to support the effort.
Little kids love the place. Stressed parents gush with gratitude for an outdoor space where they can unwind and that makes their kids happy. It’s been a cozy and serene spot for dinners, birthday parties, late-night talks, quiet time and where little kids ride bikes. It’s worked for homeschooling too.
Gratitude has been expressed many ways, including two little kids donating their piggy bank as part of Yom Kippur observances.
Red Hook’s Vanessa McKnight said “I've been there on several occasions… just to sit back n enjoy the view at sunset n beautiful evenings.... huge shout out for giving us a safe open space outlet to ease the trials of COVID19 times.”
Our Councilman Carlos Menchaca is an enthusiastic fan of the park and frequent visitor with his dog Lola.
The park also served virtually!
Sue Sardzinski on Long Island wrote “Watching traveling on the ferry as given me so much joy as I have been home due to type 2 diabetes and other chronic illnesses to avoid COVID 19. The Joy of watching the daily comings and goings of children laughter playing and others, concerts, folk music,operas, was a blessing for me to get through another day of staying at home.”
Former New Yorker Mauritius Nagelmüller in Germany: “While Sonia and I were not able to come to New York this year, looking at the pictures and videos of the park posted made us miss New York even more. It looks like such a gem in the middle of difficult circumstances and is a beautiful example of the resilience of a community in our favorite city.”
Read fan mail about PortSide’s Pandemic PopUp MiniPark here
It is work to maintain it, restock books and toys, take down umbrellas before storms, fix them, water and deadhead and replace plants, tidy up and add holiday decorations. We recently transitioned the space into the Penguin Popup Park for the December holidays. Please donate to support the effort.
Red Hook family in wheelhouse photobooth/play center created by our peter rothenberg.
PortSide’s Pandemic PopUp Minipark served thousands of people, those who came just for the park plus the 33,000 visitors who rode the Governors Island ferries leaving from Red Hook.
Governors Island also pivoted this year, seeking to create more park equity by prioritizing communities on the frontline of the pandemic, low-income Black and brown communities which have a high level of essential workers and Covid illness and death as well as a low levels of green spaces in their neighborhoods. For this reason, they chose to have their Brooklyn ferries leave from Red Hook this year and made ferries free for NYCHA public housing residents.
We worked closely with the Governors Island team to promote the new Red Hook ferry location to our community. We helped them with local wayfinding and sourcing local vendors. PortSide provided the internet for the ferry ticketing kiosk in Red Hook with donated hardware from NY Waterway. Our minipark became the official waiting area for their ferry passengers, offering a park experience before getting to the island, one that was so popular that people returned to it after the ferry ride back or on subsequent visits.
It’s a place for happy
We often find hearts drawn in chalk on the asphalt.
A ship is like a hungry baby
We’ve got a lot of physical plant what with the mini park, a floating dock we built, kayaks, and a ship the size and age of our MARY A. WHALEN is like a hungry 613 ton baby with a lot of needs. So even with personnel pandemically-reduced, work has to get done. We also wanted the MARY looking her best for national showtime via the Santa Fe Opera, so we tackled a big project: dropping the cargo boom for repainting and repainting the boom mast. We are grateful for the people who showed up once re-opening began, but the pandemic told us what we already knew: we need a larger budget to have paid maintenance staff. Donating now will help make this happen.
Thanks, in the order they appear to Peter Rothenberg, Jonathan Van Dusen, Jenny Kane, Frank Bike shop…., Sam Ebersole, Avery Steib, Ralph Hassard, Diego Garcia, Nobby Peers, Osiris Mosley, Frank Hanavan, Arsenio Martinez, Capt/Engineer Matt Perricone, Brian Broker, Sam Ebersole, and all the others who helped during the Santa Fe Opera and at other times.
In sum, during difficult 2020, PortSide did a lot despite deep funding cuts and drop in personnel caused by the pandemic. We have great plans for 2021 and beyond and ask for your support to enable us to maintain and grow our impactful work. Thanks in advance for your support! Info on how to donate here.
we added to our duck amenities. Last year it was the ducknyc ramp. this year it was the duck chalet
illustration of santa fe opera aboard the mary a. whalen (c) michael arthuer of IG @inklines
