#PortSideNeedsaHome

We are launching our #PortSideNeedsaHome campaign since we are not seeing us in plans by the NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC) for the Brooklyn Marine Terminal (BMT) where we are located. More about the BMT planning process here. Please download flyers at the bottom and share on your social media!

The month of May 2025 will mark 20 years since PortSide’s first business plan. Since then, we’ve been trying to create a PortSide Campus bigger than our our beloved historic ship MARY A. WHALEN.

Back in 2005, PortSide was ahead of the curve in NYC by proposing to serve the working waterfront AND the general public in the same place. This BMT process reflects an EDC effort to try such things with maritime, and we are ready! We know how to bring the community afloat and community ashore closer together for the benefit of both!

PortSide’s plans became recommended City policy. We would like to fulfill these plans!

“Promote the development of temporary and permanent maritime hubs to support maritime operations. Maritime hubs are sites which contain some of the following features: tie-up space, removal of bilges, grey water and sludge, refueling, water and electric connections, crew change capacity, proximity to groceries and restaurants, and proximity to transit. A hub could also integrate commercial, recreational, tourist, and/or educational uses within the same complex. Hubs should be located close to active maritime facilities, anchorage, and berthing locations to minimize travel distances.”

In fact, the EDC promised PortSide space to do this from 2008 into early 2011 - right here - as a community give-back to Red Hook. Since our long-standing plans mesh with the EDC’s maritime goals for the new BMT, let’s do it already!

See what a PortSide Campus would offer in the slide show below and share it with this link.

PortSide - a maritime plan for community and economic development

PortSide was founded to foster community and economic development in Red Hook using maritime activity – and to grow maritime activity here – and thus provide a model for NYC showing how to center maritime in waterfront redevelopment plans, our PortSide Campus being a physical embodiment of our advocacy work.

Our vision is so much about economic development that NYC’s Department of Small Business Services funded our first business plan with $50,000!

However, our workforce programs have been stunted for lack of building space needed for youth boat building and Coast Guard-approved class rooms for training sessions. We also need permission to have a partner vessel alongside with a running engine so that trainees can get hands-on experience running and maintaining such a vessel and get “sea time” needed to get a Coast Guard license. The workboat sector is very interested in PortSide offering such programs, and we have received many offers of support and partnership over the years, mostly recently SUNY Maritime College expressed interest in partnering, as has Kingsborough College in the past, as well as private NYC and out-of-state training programs. We were even offered a simulator but had no building space where we could deploy it.

PortSide’s related experience

Visiting vessels

We have a visiting vessel program. We need EDC permission and more pier space for the commercial vessels to come (the tour, fishing and party boats the public can ride, and our long planned B-to-B services for tugboats, mainly dock n shop).

The EDC’s maritime plans for BMT talk about the “marine highway” or “blue highway.” In this region, those are tugs and barges, aka the towing industry; and PortSide has long-standing plans to serve that industry with tugboat dock n shop and the training programs above. If PortSide can offer those services on site, we’ll support the marine highway node here. The presence of those boats at PortSide will help people learn about the industry which supports our marine career pipeline. Also, our ship MARY A. WHALEN is a part of towing industry history.

PortSide Park and our plans for Atlantic Basin site activation & placemaking

This park and other PortSide endeavors attest to our talent executing what urban planners call “site activation” and “placemaking.” We turn the real world of maritime into an educational opportunity and attraction. Our education programs use place-based education. For PortSide, Atlantic Basin is a living museum of contemporary and historic maritime activity.

We created, maintained and programed PortSide Park during the pandemic from June 2020 to late September 2022. Amenities and programs evolved based on what we observed and what was requested. We hosted many concerts that used the adjacent parking lot, now known as the “cellphone lot.” The community would like the EDC to allow the return of PortSide Park. PortSide Park provided:

  • table and chairs, shade umbrellas, string lights at night, outdoor wifi for remote work and school visits

  • flowering and fragrant plants in pots, educational signage aka our FenceMuseum

  • a free library (kids books in English & Spanish; some adult books)

  • toys, bikes and scooters for kids

  • events such as concerts; book readings for kids; pumpkin carving; December Penguin Park

PortSide Park won a “Covid Everyday Heroes” award in 2021 from Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams!

This impactful park was concentrated in just 5 parking spaces along the Pier 11 fence. Concerts and the kids riding our bikes and scooters spilled into the larger adjacent parking lot. Since reopening after COVID, the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal uses this parking lot on the mornings that ships are in. Most of the time, this parking lot sits empty. We are certain our park could safely co-habitat with cruise operations by having barricades in place during ship calls, and removing that fence once the “cellphone lot” empties around 11am.

A testament to the power of our park design and programming was that this little parklet was a destination for people from Red Hook and well beyond, attracting visitors from Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens and the Columbia Waterfront. For example, when one mother was asked why she came here by ferry from Brooklyn Heights where they have Brooklyn Bridge Park, she said “they have nothing like this.” Our kids play area was a version of what is called a kids “adventure playground,” a space fostering imaginative play where there are varied things kids can move around (as opposed to playground furniture bolted in place).

PortSide Park was also heavily used by riders of the new ferry service to Governors Island: 33,000 of them in 2020, 45,000 in 2021. It was a pre and post park to the island. Many kids did not want to leave our park to go to the island and wanted to stay here once they got off the ferry on the way back. Many returned just to visit the park - and our ship, once the dockmaster reopened the gate. The pier, and thus our ship, was closed to the public for over a year after the start of the pandemic.

Proposed Nature Center

We propose immediate, light-touch additions (floating habitat, nest boxes, pollinator houses and related signage/interpretation) that are high impact site activation and placemaking. They would enrich a visit to adjacent PortSide Park. They would be a tremendous asset for school field trips coming to us. This would help the wildlife and make the experience of passing through Atlantic Basin more educational and soothing. We often see people resting and leaning on the fence or ferry gangway watching the waterfowl and see their resulting photos on social media. Schools have also requested a Wet Lab which we would place as the hinge between the park and the nature center making a trail of site activations from our ship to the ferry dock, and relating to activities inside the Pier 11 Shed building.

Museum exhibits

With building space, we can have better exhibits than the small installations inside our ship or fair-weather pop-ups on deck we do now. We also propose to add signs around Atlantic Basin about the site history (interpretation) which adds to site activation. We have significant experience researching, curating and creating exhibit content.

Flyers to download

PortSide Mission

PortSide NewYork’s mission is to create a model for NYC’s waterfront future via advocacy and direct service. We demonstrate how the harbor can provide jobs, green freight movement, education, culture, and recreation — and how to center maritime in NYC waterfront development. Our long-standing goal is to create a maritime campus that serves the public and the working waterfront, a place larger than our historic ship MARY A. WHALEN.