EDC issues in Red Hook’s Atlantic Basin, summer 2023

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 

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.

Not Curbing My Enthusiasm

REBUILD BY DESIGN PLAN BY HR&A COOPERS ROBERTSON PUTS PARK SPACE ON TOP OF THEIR PROPOSED PROTECTIVE SEAWALL.

REBUILD BY DESIGN PLAN BY HR&A COOPERS ROBERTSON PUTS PARK SPACE ON TOP OF THEIR PROPOSED PROTECTIVE SEAWALL.

By Carolina Salguero

This blogpost is a response to Curbed’s 1/28/16 article about Red Hook which carried only parts of several long conversations with Nathan Kensinger.  Here is more of what I said so that my position, and PortSide NewYork’s, on changing Red Hook is better rendered.  

The Curbed article looks back; my waterfront work, from my photojournalism to founding the forward-looking non-profit PortSide, focuses on the growing maritime sector, making change and shaping the future. At PortSide, we use history to further Red Hook's development. All images, except the rendering above, are copyright Carolina Salguero.

How I would frame the future of Red Hook?

Red Hook has evolved from a place perceived by 1990’s national media as a hopeless crack den to a peninsula that in 2014 was the announced recipient of a "first in the nation" plan for urban flood protection..  Hello IFPS! That is our future, example to the nation.

Est4te Four

I understood Est4te Four to be the core of Nathan’s intended story. Thus, I said that, given that Red Hook was going to change, hugely change, it was better that we have Est4te Four, with a curated vision and their standards, than have the building boom of “luxury”’ housing such as occurred on Fourth Avenue in Park Slope/Gowanus. That left us with a hodgepodge of dreadful buildings like the yellow brick one looming over the historic Old Stone House.

We all fall in love with the Red Hook we first met

Yes, we talked nostalgia.  We talked a lot about Red Hook changes and my personal markers for the stages of evolution.  

This led me to remark that we all seem to fall in love with the Red Hook of our first contact, and the point of that remark was not to say that my first experience of 1997 (as a visitor, I moved here in 1999) was better or more valid than that of someone arriving in 2002 or the 1980s, but to convey how Red Hook triggers a deep love that is very nostalgia based.  

All newcomers to Red Hook love Red Hook, that’s why they come (you don’t come here for the great transportation), and their love starts in, and connects to, the era they arrive.

I said that was one of the great things about my being involved with Red Hook, it has an engaged community that cares about this place. 

IKEA

My view of Red Hook is so NOT nostalgia-driven that I had a lot positive to say about IKEA.  IKEA’s Sandy recovery work (done with Swedish modesty that did not tout what they did) was so significant that PortSide honored them for it.

I said the IKEA waterfront esplanade was very well designed, one of the best in the city. I said all that despite saying that closing the graving dock was a policy mistake by the city and a personal loss to me; it was my photographic muse for 5 years.  I had unfettered, permitted access to it and could come by land or sea, day or night; and I had the run of the old shipyard too. 

NYCHA, The Red Hook Houses and the new Red Hook

The Curbed piece concludes with the quote “"It's not going to be the same Red Hook for a lot of the people who live here now."”’  whereas I talked quite a bit about the people who are likely to stay in Red Hook, the overwhelming majority of Red Hook’s residents, eg the residents of the NYCHA development in the Red Hook Houses East and Red Hook Houses West.  I said that for all the problems faced by those folks, they had a large measure of residential stability.  

I said that one of my hopes for Red Hook was that, with all the change, wealth and resources coming to the Red Hook around the Houses, more resources would be focused on helping those NYCHA residents. Some of that was visible in the great number of homegrown non-profits on this small peninsula. I said that entrenched, urban poverty was a tough challenge, but that we should try. It is certainly part of PortSide’s mission.

090708 RH street life 003.jpg

Same old, same old with new people

I said that even with all the new people moving in, much stayed the same:  Red Hook the close knit community where gossip and rumor are big.  Gary Baum, the friend of the pick-up truck sledding mentioned by Nathan, used to joke that if you sneezed, in 10 minutes people know that 7 blocks away.

All of which led me to remark that what I wish Red Hook would get better at research and negotiation since so many of our land use issues were characterized by “did you hear that?!!” shock that was not necessarily based on fact; and that, as a community, we had yet to negotiate benefits from any major real estate development.  Segue to NY Rising, a change in that dynamic.

NY Rising and the future of Red Hook

Once Nathan and I got off the nostalgia beat, I spent a lot of time talking about NY Rising, my voice starting to crack with emotion when I talked about how beautiful it was for me to see that the disaster of Sandy had germinated something that augured such good for Red Hook.

NY Rising is a NYS program, and its Red Hook committee members (including me) were appointed by the State to craft a resiliency plan for $3MM in funds the state would provide.  

It was a helluva lot of work over some 9 months, but we had the benefits of the region’s best consultants, paid by the state, to support the effort. I said it was a new model worth remembering:  government paid to give grassroots community members planning resources (as opposed to Community Boards in gentrifying areas that are overwhelmed by trying to respond to Land Use permits and variances and that are not funded in proportion to that workload. Hint, hint, NYC.)  

Official NYS webpage for NY Rising statewide
Official NYS webpage for NY Rising Red Hook committee
Blog of Red Hook’s NY Rising committee  
Final resiliency plan of NY Rising Red Hook committee, shorter executive summary and mini brochure version.

Red Hook's NY Rising committee has gone well beyond the State-appointed mission.  We proposed programs exceeding that budget. The committee has already sought and secured outside funding to further some projects, including the microgrid. The committee has continued to meet and is becoming a non-profit to further work in Red Hook.  It is also looking to expand members.  GET INVOLVED!  It sought the support of the Municipal Art Society to host the Red Hook Summit about resiliency projects in Red Hook.

COME TO THE RED HOOK SUMMIT! It is Saturday, 1/30/16, 10am – 1pm at Summit Academy, 27 Huntington Street. Full disclosure, I am presenting for PortSide there.

I talked to Nathan about my role on NY Rising where I tried to raise NYCHA issues (I proposed the solar-powered emergency lights in the final plan) and my big focus was activation of the waterfront (the waterways, really) and ensuring that the wisdom of NYC’s 2011 waterfront plan Vision 2020 (embrace and activate the waterways!) was not drowned by Sandy (water is destructive, let’s build walls!). 

As a result, I was very moved when at the IFPS (Integrated Flood Protection Study) meeting last week, community members very strongly supported the idea of waterfront access and maritime activation that were on the sheet of NY Rising “values” had the room discuss.  

Listening to the IFPS room, with the report-back from each break-out table echoing PortSide values for the waterfront, I felt that I, and PortSide staff and interns, had really made a difference preparing  advocacy papers, blogposts, webpages, walk-to-ferry-landings studies, etc  for NY  Rising, all of which is shared on our website.  Our NY Rising work and waterfront vision was embraced by the room without our having spoken up for it in that room.  Given that the IFPS is a “first in the nation” program, the eyes of the world are on us in Red Hook, so it was powerful for me to see PortSide’s harbor advocacy work picked up by the IFPS process.

090809 kayak into Van B apt window 001.jpg

Changes in Red Hook – growth of maritime sector

The thrust of Nathan’s Curbed piece is displacement, new replacing the old, but I also talked about what NYC’s real estate driven press (Ahoy, Curbed!) does not cover very much: the growth of the maritime sector.  So I rattled off some Red Hook increases in maritime activity since I moved here in 1999: New York Water Taxi (a new company, and headquartered in Red Hook), Vane Brothers tug and barge company expanding two times beyond the footprint of the old Ira S. Bushey yard at the foot of Court Street (where the MARY A. WHALEN started work in 1938) to GBX and Port Authority piers, a new cruise terminal, and Red Hook Container Terminal expanded business (despite hiccups of lawsuits, Sandy and more), and the founding of PortSide NewYork, to create a maritime hub that would foster the community revitalization of Red Hook along a water and maritime theme, combine working waterfront, public access and community development and be a test lab and advocate for expand that model harborwide. 

PortSide NewYork services to a future Red Hook

I told Nathan that in September, 2015, PortSide asked the EDC for the space inside the Pier 11 warehouse next to the ship that had been promised to us in 2009, 2010, and 2011 – space that the EDC had also promised to the community as the home for PortSide.

I concluded by sending Nathan two renderings of what PortSide plans for Pier 11, a forward-looking vision for Red Hook. Here is what we are working towards!  #GetOnBoard and join us!



Red Hook Ferry Testimony

NYC EDC Map

NYC EDC Map

Why this blogpost

This blogpost is in response to the uproar over the two Red Hook ferry locations proposed by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC).  See images at bottom.  The EDC proposed these locations in a draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) and gave the public a deadline of October 8, 2015 for comments. 

The Red Hook community via the NYS NY Rising resiliency plan it created had, over a year before, articulated its recommendation for a ferry location in Atlantic Basin.  The EDC proposal did not include Atlantic Basin. 

After the angry and frustrated responses to the DEIS in a public hearing shortly before the comment deadline and the comments submitted to the EDC DEIS, the EDC reversed itself. “We agreed to take a second look at Atlantic Basin as a landing,” said vice-president Peter Flynt in a Brooklyn Paper article “We’ve heard the community loud and clear.” In short, as of this writing, the topic is still open.

PortSide NewYork has long supported ferry service for Red Hook. Over the years, we have provided advice to ferry owners, property owners, elected officials, Brooklyn Community Board 6 and others. During 2010, PortSide advocated for waterborne transit during the Vision 2020 process. During 2013-2014, PortSide President Carolina Salguero was on the NY Rising Red Hook committee which proposed an Atlantic Basin ferry location, and PortSide staff and interns contributed research to her work for NY Rising.

EDC links

Media links

How this blogpost will work

To help resolve where a new Red Hook stop on the citywide ferry system will be located, PortSide NewYork has created this blogpost.  Here, we will link all comments that were submitted to the EDC DEIS that we receive, or any subsequent statements people want to make about the Red Hook ferry, or you can post directly in the comment section at bottom.  All statements we receive will be posted without editorial comment in alphabetical order by name of person who wrote the testimony. 

We are doing this to improve transparency by showing testimony the EDC received, to foster discussion within the community by showing what the collective is thinking, and to help media reporting for all the same reasons. 

Comments submitted to the DEIS process & other statements


NYC-Historic-ship-docking-issues-City-Council-Waterfronts-Hearing-3/16/12


NYC Historic Ships need greater and easier access to NYC piers!
 
Friday 3/16/12 the City Council Committee on Waterfronts held a hearing about the New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC) WAVES initiative.  WAVES includes this goal of the Mayor's office for 2012: 

"Create uniform landing protocol and application for City-owned properties to facilitate docking of historic vessels." 

If such a protocol were in place, PortSide would surely not be suffering our current real estate crisis. 
 
At th3 3/16/12 hearing, a noteworthy number of people testified solely on the theme of historic ships.

Many people mentioned PortSide's real estate crisis - we became the theme du jour - and supported having the MARY A. WHALEN get a new home fast.

The value and struggles of historic ships in NYC was affirmed by several members of the newly formed coalition of historic ships (a formal name, mission statement and website for the group are in the works).  Members of this coalition, which includes PortSide NewYork, testified in person or sent in written testimony.

Here are links to some of the testimony from that day (official City Council transcripts are not yet ready):

Carolina Salguero, Director, PortSide NewYork click

Capt. Maggie Flanagan, maritime educator & program developer click

Mary Habstritt, Museum Director, LILAC Preservation Project click

Capt. Pamela Hepburn, Director, Tug PEGASUS Preservation Project click 

David Sharps, President, Waterfront Museum Barge click

Please support our getting a new home and all historic ships in NYC by signing our petition at http://chn.ge/PortSideSOS

For a quick summary of our programs see this video click



Historic-ships-letter-to-NYC-Council-Committee-on-Waterfronts

PortSide has a crisis: we have looked for a home for 6+ years and had a real estate agreement fall through after 3+ years of work.   

We need a home confirmed by April 30th or we close and our historic ship, the tanker MARY A. WHALEN would likely be scrapped as there are few commercial uses for her.

Please help us by writing City Council members who are reviewing a city initiative that is supposed to make docking easier for historic ships.

The Mayor's office has declared a 2012 goal to created a uniform docking protocol for historic ships. This goal is embeded in the Economic Development Corporation’s Waterfront Vision and Enhancement Strategy (WAVES).

Friday, 3/16/12, the City Council Committee on Waterfronts will be holding a hearing on at 1:00 pm, 14th Floor Committee Room, 250 Broadway, Manhattan.  Please attend and testify if you can; but PLEASE write the committee at the following email addresses:

Chair, CM Michael C. Nelson (mnelson1@council.nyc.gov)
CM Gale A. Brewer (gbrewer@council.nyc.gov)
CM Brad S. Lander (lander@council.nyc.gov)
CM Eric A. Ulrich (eulrich@council.nyc.gov)
CM Peter F. Vallone (pvallonejr@council.nyc.gov



For inspiration, here is a sample letter 

< < < Date

re:  March 16, 2012 Council Committee on Waterfronts hearing

The plight of the non-profit PortSide NewYork and their home, the historic tanker MARY A. WHALEN is of particular concern to me.  I want to see the PortSide’s innovative waterfront-themed programs survive and grow and ensure that the MARY A. WHALEN is saved from being scrapped. PortSide NewYork needs to get a homeport secured immediately for these to happen.

I strongly urge you to help improve docking options for historic ships in NYC by creating a uniform landing protocol -- this will help PortSide and the MARY A. WHALEN.    

Without a clear set of rules and procedures that reflect the needs and operations of vessels, historic ships will continue to have difficulty finding usable berths and will be forced out of our waterfront.

I am writing now because there is a City Council Committee on Waterfronts hearing on March 16 to follow-up on the Waterfront Action Agenda (WAVES) of the Economic Development Corporation (EDC).  One goal of WAVES is: “Create uniform landing protocol and application for City-owned properties to facilitate docking of historic vessels (Mayor’s Office, 2012).”  

NYC’s historic ships offer a diverse range of experiences I value:  they teach about the past of this port and waterfront city, they offer great recreational, educational and workforce training opportunities for youth, they run wonderful cultural programs for people of all ages. Ships offer the most exciting and easy staycation options in New York City; being afloat is like nothing else!  Historic ships move around, linking and servicing service communities and boroughs in ways that land-based museums cannot.  

Please make piers easier for historic ships to use in NYC and historic ships to bring NYC’s revitalizing waterfront to life!  They are THE embodiment of “Vision 2020,” the city’s new waterfront plan.

< < < Add Any Additional Comments Here

Sincerely,

NAME
        < < < Be sure to include this information
ADDRESS