MARY A. WHALEN's 75th Birthday... some time in Atlantic Basin

Exciting 5 Days in Atlantic Basin & NY Harbor

What a whirlwind!  In just over a month, PortSide NewYork received a White House award for our Sandy recovery work, had our Founder & Director Carolina Salguero receive a National Maritime Historical Society (NMHS) award, and we were able to open the tanker MARY A. WHALEN to the public for the first time in almost three years!!!

News of that NMHS award facilitated PortSide’s being able to move the tanker into Atlantic Basin, which is how, on very short notice, we could to open the tanker MARY A. WHALEN for her 75th birthday.

Friday 5/17/13, some eighty NMHS members came to the MARY A. WHALEN on a NY Waterways ferry as part of a harbor tour of historic ships.  Our Director Carolina Salguero spent the rest of the weekend with NMHS during their 50th anniversary celebrations and annual meeting.

Burchenal Green, President of the National Maritime Historical Society, at the helm of the MARY. 

For inspiration about how to think of using our harbor, take a look at the National Maritime Historical Society 50th Anniversary weekend events to see how maritime people connect far flung venues - by boat!  The itinerary harkens back to the “Chain of Ships” we once proposed, a series of NYC maritime destinations connected by boat.

With the tanker in Atlantic Basin for the NMHS visit, we asked if we could stay two more days, which is how the ship was suddenly able to be open to the public on Tuesday, 5/21/13, the tanker's actual 75th birthday.

Party report!

The MARY A. WHALEN was open for public tours during a hot Tuesday afternoon, followed by a public party with “cake and remarks” from 5-7pm, with an evening after-party capping it all off.

TankerTour visitors included the great surprise of crew descendants: Hans Hansen, son of the engineer Hans Hansen who worked with Alf Dyrland, the Captain for 20 years, brought the engineer’s granddaughter Ingrid Hansen for the first time since 1968. She was about 9 when she last visited and remembered that women were not welcome aboard at the time. Some things have changed!

We also received visitors from PS 29, the school for whose Super Science Saturday fair we created our simple “Simple Machine” machine and installation, a highly interactive exhibit we would like to bring other schools and public events. (School staff & parents, please get in touch to help shape programs for the next year!). 

PortSide use of the tanker as a social mixer to bring maritime and inland people together was sure evident during the party!  

Hip Hop dancer Ze Motion as photographed near the stack of the MARY A. WHALEN by Jonathan Atkin

We had the maritime consultants, authors and artists Barry Parker, Rick Spilman & Frank Hanavan, along with community members, families with kids, and Ian Danic, a board member of River Project, with his pet giant macaws. 

Frank Hanavan did some turkshead bombing of our gangway rail and strung up ship flags to great effect, assisted by architect and Museum Designer Paul Alter, who peered into the cargo tanks and expressed an interest in being the man to redesign them for exhibit and function space when we're ready to do that.

Also attending was the Federal Disaster Recovery Coordination team involved with New York State's Sandy recovery.  We met them thanks to winning the White House award and are talking to them about how to bring resiliency preparedness resources to Red Hook. 

Roland Lewis lead a contingent from the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance. Dan Wiley from US Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez' office and Jim Vogel from NYS Senator Velmanette Montgomery spent a long time with us, and we were glad to have our prospective landlord John Quadrozzi of GBX-Gowanus Bay Terminal aboard with his wife Xiomara.

As if the macaws were not visual enough, maritime photographer Jonathan Atkin provided more eye candy by running a photo shoot with three magnificent dancers.

Access limitations at our normal berth in the Red Hook containerport had prevented Atkin from getting dancers to the tanker for weeks; so with just two days notice, he assembled three of them to further his Hero Project, an inspired photo concept he created to use dancers to bring attention to the cause of historic ships.

After the party shoot, one dancer tackled his bird phobia with one of Ian's macaws – the MARY A. WHALEN is consistently a place where extraodinarly things happen - and the hip hop dancer Ze Motion, who dances for Madonna and major sponsors, offered to donate a dance performance to PortSide. 

What's in a name

The tanker’s 75th, and our new website, are the occasion to introduce the new way we will refer to the tanker.

We’ve been calling her “the Whalen” for short since that was what our Director Carolina Salguero first heard her called in 2001; but we have learned that all former crew members call her “the MAR,Y” and so from here on in, so shall we.

That's a good lead in to note just how rare and precious the MARY A. WHALEN is as well as what PortSide has done with her.

According to Norman Brouwer, a noted maritime historian, the MARY A. WHALEN is the only oil tanker in the world re-purposed as an educational and cultural center. Once the Sandy-damaged tanker JOHN B CADDELL is scrapped next month, Norman says the MARY A. WHALEN will be the last surviving coastal oil tanker in the USA.

What was a sizeable fleet of coastal oil tankers, a type of vessel type which was significant to the war effort during WWII, was destroyed in the course of duty, sunk as artificial reefs, scrapped or , years ago, exported to third world countries.

Some behind the scenes photos - what's involved in moving the MARY

It's great to be a tanker!  We could use our own boom to lift aboard a portasan and take it with us, sparing us the cost and hassle of having Royal Flush deliver. The tug RED HOOK approaches, makes up the tow, we haul in our shorepower cord, we pass the container ship pier of the Red Hook Marine Terminal, MV Cape Race as we enter Atlantic Basin, John Weaver attaches the shorepower cord adapter for Atlantic Basin, coming back home at dusk with Red Hook Volunteer Mike Elders on deck, crew of tug SASSAFRAS docking the MARY.

Special thanks

Profuse thanks to the Port Authority, EDC & BillyBey for greenlighting our stay in Atlantic Basin within days.  At this time, we would also like to welcome BillyBey to Red Hook as the new operator of Atlantic Basin. Our visit was their first vessel call in Atlantic Basin, and it was an auspicious start!  Thanks also to Metro Cruise Services, the operators of the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, for their help with the fencing we used during the TankerTours and tanker birthday party.

Thanks to the Red Hook Volunteers for providing essential set-up and break-down labor. If you want to help Red Hook’s Sandy recovery, please come volunteer with them!  Sandy-damaged businesses, home owners, tenants and NYCHA residents are still being helped by them.

We only recently learned the MARY A. WHALEN's actual launch date was May 21 due to research by noted maritime historian Norman Brouwer, the man who basically wrote THE guides to historic ships and some of our national preservation standards for them. Thank you, Norman!  

Vane Brothers tugboat RED HOOK

Special thanks to Vane Brothers for donating the tow between our current berth in the containerport and Atlantic Basin!!!  We were very excited to be towed to Atlantic Basin by their brand new tug, the RED HOOK, named in honor of our favorite neigborhood.  Vane's NYC operations are based at the former site of Ira S. Bushey's in Red Hook where the MARY A. WHALEN first began her working life, which provides a great reminder of how the working waterfront in Red Hook has a long, and living, history - and we are part of it!

Monthly Red Hook Sandy Survivor gatherings

Red Hook Sandy Survivor Gathering

Sun 6/30 4-7pm 

351 Van Brunt

 Flyer

Another monthly Red Hook Sandy Survivor gathering will occur at "351" where PortSide had our Sandy aid station, a space donated by Realty Collective.  The plan is to continue these gatherings on the the last Sunday of every month so long as there is interest.  To offer help or RSVP sandy6mo@gmail.com

What this is about

A Sandy+6 months gathering in late April was organized by PortSide NewYork, Victoria Hagman of Realty Collective, Kerry Quade and Maria Pagano (president of the Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association, a new PortSide friend). The idea was to get people talking and reconnected in the way the community was in the early days after the storm when so many of us were on the street or in public meetings.

How it went

Some 60 people came over 3 hours, and people really liked the event.  Many asked for us to do it monthly. The organizers agreed to do so and to do this the last Sunday of every month to provide a predictable date that would be easier for people to remember.

We dropped the ball last month and missed doing it!   PortSide will take the blame for that, there was a lot going on at PortSide what with last minute news which opened up the permit doors to getting the MARY WHALEN out of the port for the first time in almost 3 years; but hey, May's last Sunday was also Memorial Day weekend :-)

At the event, the organizers provided cake and coffee, Felicitas Oefelein donated wine, and Fairway donated cheese platters.  home/made lent the coffee urns, SBIDC helped get the food donated from Fairway, Realty Collective covered the cost of cakes etc.  Some people brought food.  There was very relaxed vibe, lots of talk, many people talking to people they didn’t know. No agenda, no speakers.  Attendees included home owners, renters, people from NYCHA.

Looking ahead

To make this happen regularly, we need some help.  Plus, the idea is that this is a community thing, not some organizers doing for you; so if you want these monthly gatherings, step up and make them happen!

Help would be:

• designing a flyer
• distributing flyers (to be most inclusive, info can't just be shared digitally)
• small donations to support photocopying of flyers, cake and coffee. Very small, sheetcakes at Costco are wicked cheap.
• driving to Costco to get said cakes…
• setting up tables and food, breaking down the tables and collecting the garbage 
• Several NYCHA residents said there should be better flyering in the houses; can anyone here help with this?
• Some of the NYCHA residents also said it would be good to have a venue closer to the Houses, which sounds like a good idea.  Can someone work on that idea?  Would such a thing be possible at the Library?  351 Van Brunt is easy to use because Victoria Hagman of Realty Collective has the lease, and so there are no permit issues, no costs, etc.
• other ideas you suggest… 

We’re going to keep it simple this time and offer less food (though we won’t stop you from bringing any!) since people seemed most interested in talking, and we want to make this easy enough to do.

Please forward this widely!  Best of luck with your recovery process!

PortSide NewYork wins White House "Champions of Change" Sandy recovery award→

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". 

Realty Collective's listings were replaced with emergency info

At first the internet was down and we ran a Clear wifi hotspot modem up the tree for two days to get a signal

Applying to FEMA in the back room

Susan Povich, Red Hook Lobster Pound (L) and Rob Walsh, Commissioner Small Business Services (R)

inflating a new air bed to replace a flooded mattress

The queue to talk to the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce

"Brooklyn, only the strrong survive" on t-shir of Steve Tarpin of Steve's Key Lime Pie

James Ellis (r) of Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce ever at the ready!

Architect's advice on rebuilding

People in to warm up and charge up

"351" was a stop for outside aid workers to connect with Red Hook

Outside "351" Realty Collective's listings racks were great for emergency info

Mayor's office Restoration staff at "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.”

Scott Pfaffman in front of his property at 360 Van Brunt

One building grew their collection of work gloves out front

The queue for aid supplies inside Visitation Church

Occupy was a force running a lot of the aid work at RHI

Meetings were held at Kentler Gallery

Nydia Velazquez and Rob Walsh lead the first meeting for small businesses at Kentler Gallery

There was an aid center in the cellar of the River of God Church at 110 Wolcott Street

For weeks, demolition garbage lined Van Brunt for many weeks

With the power off, Stop One staff ran around the bodega with flashlights and served customers from a window

Thousands of volunteers flooded into Red Hook, which were dispatched from SBIDC's Van Brunt Street office by Friday the week of the storm

Reginald Flowers of Falconworks Theatre group leading a community meeting at PS27

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

PortSide NewYork Sandy Story Part 1: saving MARY WHALEN

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This is PortSide NewYork's hurricane Sandy story, installment one.  

Installment one is a personal report by Carolina Salguero, Director of PortSide, speaking as Shipkeeper of the MARY A. WHALEN.  This installment covers PortSide's time in port preparing for Sandy, riding out the storm on the tanker, assessing our damage. We think the ship-related segment of our Sandy story is important because it shows how the maritime community in the port of NY-NJ spent days preparing for Sandy.   The maritime community has something to offer inland neighbors in terms of understanding how to assess flood risks and prepare for them.

The second installment of our Sandy story will cover PortSide's effort to help inland Red Hook, Brooklyn recover from the storm. 

The third installment will cover lessons learned and ideas for the future.

What a difference four days can make

Thursday, 10/25/12, Sandy minus four, the PortSide crew is excited to be hosting an elementary school class aboard the tanker MARY A. WHALEN.  After finishing a TankerTour and jolly lunch for 30 on deck with the City + Country School and waving goodbye to their coach bus, Dan Goncharoff says “have you been looking at this storm coming up the coast?”

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C + C School visit, Thursday morning

I check the weather websites. This looks like hurricane Irene plus some.  

We convene a crew meeting and start hurricane preparations. School docents become a Sandy prep squad. By end of day, the deck was cleared of anything that could blow, and I am calling and emailing around for crew to help prepare and to ride out the storm on the ship. 

Friday morning, after more info about the storm, I am trying to find a protected berth for the tanker MARY A. WHALEN.  Just days before, we received word that our application had been accepted; the ship was on the National Register of Historic Places! Since the MARY is not fully restored, she lacks some equipment that would help her in a big storm: a working engine (eg, the ability to run away), machinery to raise her anchors if dropped to hold us in place, and a winch to haul in docklines under load. Compensating for that involves some extra forethought. 

Despite our efforts, we can’t find a good alternate berth for the MARY outside of the Red Hook Container Terminal.  Hughes Marine says “We’re out of space. You’ll be able to walk across Erie Basin by the time this is over; it will be so full of vessels.”  A contact at a shipyard says “we flooded during Irene, and this one looks to be worse, you sure you want to be over here?” “No and good luck,” is my answer.

After more checking of the weather, I decide to move the MARY where she rode out Irene, on the other side, the north side, of our current Pier 9B. (The south side lines up with the end of Degraw Street). For non-sailors, here’s how this kind of calculation goes:

Winds were expected to start from NE, swing around to the East and end up SW, but this could always change. If rough weather were coming from anything west to southwest, our current position has us exposed to the wind from the southwest and the fetch (long stretch of water over which wind can build up waves) from Staten Island up the Buttermilk Channel. 

The fendering (the wooden cribbing protecting ship and pier) is not robust on this side. A big advantage to the north side are some pilings at the inshore end that stand much taller than the pier and which would help prevent the tanker from riding up onto the pier if the surge were really high. 

The north side would have us more exposed from winds at the start of the storm, but the hill of Brooklyn Heights and the pier to the north of us (even though it has no shed) would provide a compensating wind break.  

As the wind clocked around to the south, a wall of containers near the bulkhead would provide a windbreak to the east, and the pier shed would be an enormous windbreak once the wind went south of east.  

A final consideration was that in the extreme case of docklines failing while we were on the northside, the tanker had a chance of bouncing around inside the space between the two piers for a while, maybe long enough for us to get other lines out or call for help; whereas, on the southside of the pier, if our docklines broke, tide or wind could shove the ship up on the rocks nearby to the south (surely the death of the tanker) or shoot us down the Buttermilk Channel towards unknown risks. 

I began calling tugboat companies to request a tow. Everyone is busy with storm prep so getting a tug takes a while.  I have the tug turn the MARY around so her stern faces east, putting her heavier end towards the expected wind direction. Her light bow is my worry.

The tug’s crew helps us put out storm lines, more lines than we would normally use, and double and triple parted lines. (Instead of a line just going from boat to dock, a triple-parted line goes from dock to boat to dock to boat).  The lines are set with a lot of slack to allow the boat to rise during the expected surge.  During Sandy, Peter Rothenberg and I will go out in the wind and rain to ease the lines as necessary

From Thursday until Monday, a changing array of volunteers bang through a punch list: gangway lashed to the deck. Gas generator moved near entry hatch and tested.  Gasoline, food, and water bought. Weepy portholes caulked. PortaSan moved inside the pier shed so it can't blow away.  

More calls to look for crew... Commercial boats have paid crew, but most historic vessels rely on a corps of volunteers and; with so many boats to protect, available bodies were scarce.  Compounding that, due to the danger, some spouses do not allow their partners to volunteer on the historic ships during the storm. Danger is one thing for paid crew; as a volunteer, it's another.

I ask Peter Rothenberg, our volunteer museum curator, if he wants to be crew. Peter makes a speedy calculation, “I hesitated for a moment, thinking this may be really unwise, and then said yes, probably being more reckless (brave?) than normally, because I had just lost my mother, and thus she was unable to question my judgment.”  

Peter Rothenberg

The harbor is abuzz with chatter on phone, email, and texts sharing weather info, plans, moral support. Mike Cohen has info on the South Street Seaport ships. Mike Abegg is dealing with the Harbor School boats. I talk to tug captains and ask Jan Andrusky, Logistics Manager of Weeks Marine, if she can share weather and Coast Guard updates as she had during Irene. Answer, “yes!” Jan is responsible for floating equipment on the eastern seaboard, the Gulf of Mexico, and more, and has lots of experience and access to weather data.

Bobby Silva, captain of a Reinauer barge up in Albany sends a text: “wish I gave you my keys to move my truck. My baby will be a goner.”  Other Reinauer crew who have not been sent out of town on vessels moved their vehicles from Erie Basin to the second floor of the garage at the Gowanus Home Depot and all their vehicles survived.

About a day before Sandy hit, the word comes that the surge would be at least 8 feet. Time to lengthen docklines.  

A sign that things will be worse than Irene is that the port moves the stack of containers along the bulkhead. My windbreak to the east is gone.  We also hear that the Port Authority will evacuate the port and lock the gates at midday before the surge, so there would be no new help getting to us. I ask the Port Authority Police officer if he will leave port if it gets really bad, “no, I will just drive a dump truck on patrol” is his stalwart answer. 

Somewhere in all this, there is an announcement that subways would stop running in advance of the storm, and Mayor Bloomberg declares evacuation for Zone A areas, which include our neighborhood of Red Hook. An evacuation order is not changing my plans, though it could limit my getting help.  

My mother calls “you’re not staying on the boat during this are you?”  My responsibility is to protect the MARY A. WHALEN and to protect her from doing damage to the property of others. AT 172’ long and 613 gross tons, she is big enough to cause a lot of destruction if she breaks loose.

Sandy is due Monday night. Sunday night, I am one of many recipients of an email telling Red Hook people which bars will be open and what movies are being screened.  This makes me wonder: Is the community ashore prepping for Sandy? Has anyone evacuated? After that email, PortSide’s maritime world feels separated from our shoreside neighbors by more than six blocks and a fence. 

Monday day, the weather rachets up.  My weather station is set up in the galley.  A laptop, a clipboard with regular print-outs of NOAA marine weather, updates from Jan, the worst news highlighted in yellow.  Peter nabs the ship's cat Chiclet and locks her in. As the weather rises, Chiclet cleans herself incessantly.  

I read the shocking news that the HMS BOUNTY has sunk in the storm, at sea. I hear from Paul Amico, a dockbuilder advising us, “I just saw a Don Jon tug heading up the North River with waves breaking over the wheelhouse.” That means 18’ waves in the Hudson.

HMS BOUNTY sinks. Photo courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard

It gets colder and damper. I fire up the galley’s diesel stove, patented in 1918, as much to dry the air as to heat it.  As winds rise, Peter and out go out to add extra lines to the tarp covering the wheelhouse windows. After warming up over tea, I get word that the surge would be at least 12’ and would hit in about 5 hours, right at high tide. 

12’ is NOT good news. I am keen to keep the ship’s light bow from blowing or floating up onto the pier, my big worry during Irene, a risk to both boat and pier. The MARY’s stern is heavy and sits about 8’ in the water whereas her bow is actually up out of the water -- the forward engine room has been stripped, the forepeak has no ballast water, and she is carrying no cargo.  Paul Amico calls, “have you considered a preventer line?”  Yes. I turn to Peter, “time to go back out, time for a preventer line.”   

We run a line to Pier 9A, the pier 265 feet to the north of us.  We have a large collection of lightly-used docklines from tugboat friends. I bend together (that means tie together in mariner speak) two heavy eight-braid tug hawsers, and then add all our other dock lines.  To drag this through the water, we tie together an agglomeration of light line (rope) and hand-haul the collection around to the other pier.  

We are making the line off to a cleat on Pier 9A as the waters start to rise fast.  While heading back to the tanker, the waters crest the bulkhead and pool into the port.

The string piece of the pier is several feet higher than the port landmass, which gives us about 5 minutes to disconnect our shorepower cord, pull it up onto the boat, haul in the ladder, and start the generator. 

Somehow, between unplugging the shorepower from the shed and getting the cord onto the shed, our electrical system develops a short.  This means the generator turns off every time I plug in the shorepower cord. Peter then runs an extension cord to the generator to keep the laptop and mini fridge running.

So begins 35 nights, of relying on flashlights and one 15-amp extension cord, until our shorepower connection can be repaired.

The waters rise. The port’s exterior lights go out. A container lifts and bobs our way.  Humps appear in the water along the pier, like a long Loch Ness monster. I realize I am looking at all the tire fenders floating as high as their straps would allow. Somehow the overhead lights inside the shed stay on, and the windows in the doors afford the surreal view of an indoor sea.  

Peter and I watch orange bursts of light over Manhattan. “Probably transformer explosions,” I say.  Manhattan goes dark. I watch the water for several hours to make sure it isn’t rising and then sleep for several hours.

Lower Manhattan without power except at Staten Island Ferry Terminal. Jersey to the left, midtown to the right.
Upsticking bolts show where head logs were ripped off the pier by Sandy.

Tuesday’s plan is to shorten the docklines and get off the boat; but the wind is still so high that, even though the shed is a windbreak, the wind roaring over the shed is enough to grab the tippy top of the tanker and push us off the pier. The ebb tide pushes us back onto the pier, and we pull in a little line; then the wind blows us off again. Given how many lines we had out and that they were double and triple parted and since we don’t have a working winch, it takes us three hours of floating back and forth to shorten all the lines and get the boat to the pier.  

I get a few worried calls and emails asking us if the MARY is aground. Perplexing, until I learn that a similar tanker, the JOHN B. CADDELL, is aground on Staten Island, a cautionary tale of what can happen if a ship is not well tended before and during such a storm.

This is not us! Tanker JOHN B. CADDELL aground on Staten Island. Via Twitter

At dusk, some volunteers make it in. Jenny Kane, Amy Bucciferro, Paul Amico after inspecting the damage at the DUMBO ferry dock.

I tell Peter that PortSide had historic documents stored in one room in the shed. 

Peter looks startled, then irked at me and, as he told us weeks later, “This was news to me and I scrambled to rescue what I could.  Unlike riding out a storm on a ship, dealing with wet paper artifacts I was familiar with.  I had worked in museums for years, with collections stored in leaky basements, and had rescued a lot of paper ephemera after 9/11.  Fearing fused wet paper and mold, I turned the tables on Carolina and charged her to get as many dry sheets and towels as she could find fast.”

PortSide's archive of historic documents is somewhere beneath all this.

I kick in the door to the stevedore's lounge, and we all schlepp tables up the stevedore’s lounge (I find the height of the second floor oddly comforting after the flood).  Modern books we junk.  Peter begins a painstaking process of separating wet papers, blueprints and photographs, blotting them dry, interleaving them with sheets, weighing them down.  I am bushed and crash into my bunk. 

Peter works until 4 am, bringing things aboard and slowly toasting some near the galley stove.

Over the next several days, Peter covers most horizontal surfaces in the tanker with drying antique documents. “Some of the blue prints lost most of their blue to the water, and the modern pulp paper fared worse than the rag paper of the 1800s; but in the end most of the important items in the collection, if a little worse for wear, were salvaged.”     

Wednesday, the Halloween that never was, Peter and I head into the shed to inspect more things.  

The hard-to-find vintage engine parts that could repair MARY’s engine have been submerged. Ditto all the historic artifacts from Todd Shipyard.  Ditto our electrical transformer. 

I make some calls and am told to douse the transformer in fresh water, dry it, and then spray it heavily with di-electric cleaner. We retrieve buckets of water from our rain barrels (there is no running water connection to the ship) and pour them over the transformer. I locate one outlet with power (which blessedly worked for a few days), plug in a fan and park it in front of the transformer. (The treatment above worked. We are still using this transformer in 2021!)

Drying our rinsed transformer. We were so lucky! Right after several days of drying, the power in the outlet went out. The ebbing waters pinned lots of dunnage around our transformer.

The engine parts are beyond us, and we turn to the artifacts.  

Once upon a time, Peter had carefully wrapped each one in paper and identified each with a number and a photo. That labeling system is gone. We unwrap it all and leave stuff to air out. I console myself with the thought that shipyard artifacts have likely been wet before.

An email arrives saying Red Hook restaurants are cooking their food at a community BBQ rather than have it be wasted, BYO charcoal, and Peter and I bike into Red Hook toting some charcoal.

I leave the port with my spirits high.  The ship is fine, the artifact loss was minimal. Irene had been a great preparatory experience; we had survived Sandy. 

A few blocks down Van Brunt my spirits drop. I was a photojournalist for some 15 years and worked in rough places overseas, and I recognize the signs of disaster.  A burm of garbage three to four feet high lines Van Brunt Street. Dazed and muddy people mill around at the corner of Pioneer Street amid the clatter of generators and a tangle of electrical cords.  

Peter remarks that it looks like a macabre Christmas. Santas, which had been stored in cellars, are now muddy and atop garbage heaps, or, at the bar Bait and Tackle, set up by the door like a dark joke.  In short, the mess ashore is bad, much worse than the damage to PortSide NewYork. I immediately decide that PortSide should come ashore to help our neighbors.   

More on that in the next installment.

PortSide NewYork 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 port.

For our latest Sandy relief info, see our blogpost, follow us on Twitter.

Additional reporting and editing by Dan Goncharoff and Peter Rothenberg.

The kind of thing we prevented: how a vessel went up on a pier during Sandy.
Photo by Frank Yacino, crewmember of tug KRISTY ANN REINAUER

Labels: Brooklynresiliencesuperstorm SandyfloodportsurgePortSidemaritimeRed HookMary A. WhalenJohn B. Caddellhurricane Sandys

PortSide Waterfront questions for NYC Mayoral candidates attending 2013 Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance (MWA) conference

PortSide NewYork Waterfront questions for NYC Mayoral candidates attending 2013 Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance (MWA) conference:

MWA asked attendees to submit questions for the Mayoral candidates. Here is our list.

• Given that current waterfront projects of all types struggle excessively for having to deal with multiple bureaucracies, including many which are not conversant with some waterfront issues, will you support the creation of an NYC waterfront department as discussed during the Vision 2020 process?

• Vision 2020 is a great corrective to NYC’s waterfront revitalization plans for the attention it gives to water-related and waterborne uses.  What will you do to ensure that Vision 2020 is a plan which is put into effect?

• NYC has piers designated “for views” which makes them unavailable for boat docking. We believe boats should able to use these piers; we believe boats add to the view.  Will you support our Piers4Boats campaign?

• NYC has many inactive piers suitable for boats, especially in the EDC’s portfolio. What will you do to put these assets to use?

  Note: 4/9/13, the day of the conference, the EDC announced the results of the RFP they issued about a year before which was reported in the WSJ. BillyBey (of the ferries) will be the operator with Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance (MWA) providing the marketing.

• Will you support the creation of a Floating Historic District, similar in spirit to historic districts for buildings, to raise the protection and endorsement of historic ships?

• Historic vessels struggle to find operating places in NYC (visiting and permanent), what will you do to support them?

• What plans do you have for resiliency in the wake of hurricane Sandy?

• Do you have a waterfront plank in your mayoral campaign platform? If so, what is it?

• Do you have a staffer devoted to waterfront issues? If so, who? If not, why not or when are you going to fix that?

Posted 1 week ago by Carolina Salguero

Labels: waterfront Christine Quinn conference John Liu Bill de Blasio Bill Thompson MWA urban planning New York City Vision 2020 Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance policy Mayoral Mayor 2013 campaign

Red Hook Sandy Surge Map & How to Assess Future Flood Risk

Updated 4/19/23

Hurricane Sandy badly flooded Red Hook, Brooklyn on October 29, 2012.  One of the many terrific responses from inside the community was the map made by cartographer Jim McMahon. 

View fullsize

Map created by Jim McMahon. Permitted uses include educational use, emergency preparedness, resiliency planning. No commercial uses granted.

Jim McMahon works for Scholastic and lives in Red Hook.  McMahon went around Red Hook and measured the elevation above sea level at many points and recorded where there was flooding.  PortSide NewYork would like to thank him for allowing us to share this map.  It is a very useful guide for calculating the risk of Red Hook flooding in the future.  

He suggests that elevation markers be placed flood zones for future preparedness. See the DNAInfo story about why he created the map here.

To calculate the risk of flooding at a location:

You need to take the height of the expected storm surge, the time it is expected, and compare that time to the tide cycle in the harbor. Places are most vulnerable at the point of high tide.  To calculate projected surge risk  at that point, you have to add the height of the incoming water to the height of the tide at that time.

There is about a 5 foot difference between high and low tide in NYC; so a 5' surge, if it comes at low tide, will not run into Red Hook.  That's why we were were spared by 2011's hurricane Irene, the surge did not hit at high tide. 

There are two high tides and two low tides each day. There is roughly six hours between high tide one and low tide, and then another six hours until the second high tide. In other words, the high tides are 12 hours apart and the low tides are 12 hours apart.  

Wind can compound the effects of rising waters in that winds from the south will push the Atlantic Ocean onto land and push the water in the Upper Bay towards Red Hook. Winds from the northeast would push the waters away from Red Hook.

Wind also has an effect on the water within the harbor in terms of creating local waves.  The big Upper Bay (between Red Hook and the Statue of Liberty and Staten Island) is a big water space which can create fetch issues if the wind is coming from west or southwest. Tide + surge + wind over water or fetch = more water hitting the shore at peak of crashing waves.  If we don't have big waves, we are at the lowest range of risk for the tide level.  Here is a definition of fetch.

An area of the water surface over which waves are generated by a wind having a constant direction and speed. Also, it is the name given to the length of the fetch area, measured in the direction of the wind from which the seas are generated. One of the ingredients for lake effect snow is the fetch of the water over which cold air can gain moisture. from http://www.weather.com/glossary/f.html

In Red Hook, there were also many underground springs, so sometimes flooding here comes from groundwater welling up and not just seawater coming in.  Add to that, the water coming from overflowing sewers, and Red Hook can have water coming in from many sides.

Due to climate change, we all need to be more aware of flooding risks, engage in emergency preparedness and resiliency planning.

Get current weather information from PortSide’s weather station on top of the wheelhouse of our historic ship MARY A. WHALEN here.

Fun historical fact:  There is one spot close to the harbor which did not flood during Sandy, that is the square defined by the blocks of Dikeman, Coffey, Van Dyke Street between Conover & Ferris Street. That is where there was once a high hill on Cypress Island near the Revolutionary War era Fort Defiance (the fort for which the local restaurant is named), a hill which was leveled to make fill. The site of that hill remains higher than the filled area near it.

You can see the hill on old maps, such as the one below.  This also shows how much of Red Hook has been filled to make the peninsula as it is today.  

PortSide NewYork creates programs that capture and explain such history; we call them WaterStories since they tell Red Hook's history along a waterfront theme.  This historical information clearly applies to emergency planning in addition to general education.

More in the “Resiliency 101” section of our virtual museum here

This is from a "Ratzer map" or a map drawn by Bernard Ratzer in the 1770s. There is a New York Times story about the Ratzer map at the Brooklyn Historical Society here.

.

EPA-Gowanus-Superfund-reunion-en-Red-Hook-Espanol

 
English version of this is here

Querida comunidad de Red Hook,

Todos hemos estado enfocados en los efectos del huracán Sandy, ahora PortSide quisiera llamar su atención a otro asunto importante que afectará a Red Hook. Se trata del Canal de Gowanus, que define nuestra costa este y sur. 

Mediante un proceso que ha estado en marcha por aproximadamente dos años, la EPA (Agencia de Protección Ambiental) ha declarado al Canal de Gowanus como sitio Superfund (uno de los lugares más tóxicos del país). Este es un tema complejo que requiere gran consideración y, lamentablemente, mucha investigación para entenderlo. Véase un mapa interactivo de Gowanus en la página del EPA, aquí.

Infórmese y/o participe en las reuniones importantes relacionadas con el proyecto Superfund de la EPA durante el miércoles 23 y el jueves 24 de enero de 2013. (Véase mas detalles abajo)

La EPA tienes planes de dragar (eliminar) los materiales tóxicos del canal, y Red Hook ha sido identificado como una posible ubicación donde colocar el material removido, a ser remediado en una “establecimiento de almacenamiento confinado” o CDF. 

En simple español, material remediado quiere decir que el material removido o dragado ha recibido tratamiento, de manera que el nivel de toxicidad ha sido reducido considerablemente. 

La EPA y otras “entidades responsables” (empresas y entidades gubernamentales alrededor del Gowanus) invertirán cerca de medio billón de dólares en la remediación, por lo que este proceso Superfund representa una gran oportunidad para el desarrollo económico local, además de la limpieza del medio ambiente. 

Las reuniones se llevarán a cabo:

Miércoles, 23 de enero de 2013, 6:30-9:00pm: P.S. 58, Carroll Gardens

Jueves, 24 de enero de 2013, 7:00-9:00pm: PAL Miccio Center, Red Hook**

(**Traducción simultánea estará disponible**)

Los folletos de las reuniones estan disponibles en

Ingles

Español

El plan de la EPA esta disponible aquí. 

El periodo de comentarios para el Plan Propuesto del Canal Gowanus se cerrara el 28 de marzo de 2013. Los comentarios podran ser enviados a GowanusCanalComments.Region2@epa.gov.

 

Para mas informacion o consultas, puede comunicarse con

Natalie Loney

EPA
Community Involvement Coordinator
Tel 212-637-3639
Fax 212-637-4445

Loney.Natalie@epamail.epa.gov

Puede obtener copias impresas de la documentacion e investigacion en:

Carroll Gardens Library

396 Clinton St.

Brooklyn, NY 11231

Joseph Miccio Community Center

110 West 9th Street

Brooklyn, NY 11231

EPA-Region II

Superfund Records Center

290 Broadway, 18th Floor

New York, NY 10007-1866

212-637-4308

PortSide quiere alentar a la comunidad de Red Hook a involucrarse mas.

De las comunidades a lo largo del Canal Gowanus y la Bahia de Gowanus, Red Hook ha tenido menos participacion en este proceso. Le animamos a buscar un grupo de la comunidad local, al “Community Advisory Group”del Supetfund (CAG), cuyos miembros tienen una gran cantidad de conocimiento sobre los aspectos tecnicos y ambientales, ademas del proceso politico. El CAG esta abierto a cualquier persona y podria ser un recurso para la comunidad de Red Hook según avanza el proceso. 

Existe otro sitio Superfund en Nueva York, Newtown Creek. El grupo comunitario “Newtown Creek Alliance” esta muy comprometido con el proceso de Superfund en el area. La pagina web del Superfund CAG de Newtown Creek esta disponible aquí.

EPA-Gowanus-Superfund-Meeting-in-Red-Hook

Version en Espanol esta aqui

Dear Red Hook,

We have all been focused on the effects of hurricane Sandy, and now PortSide would like to draw your attention to another important waterfront issue which will affect Red Hook.  It relates to the Gowanus Canal which defines our eastern and southern border. 

In a process that has run for about two years, the EPA (federal Environmental Protection Agency) has declared the Gowanus Canal a Superfund site (or one of our nation’s most toxic places); and December 28, 2012, they released their plan for how they propose to clean up the canal. This is a complex issue which requires careful consideration and, hate to say it, some homework!   

An interactive EPA map of the Gowanus is here.  Wikipedia's definition of a Superfund is here and their history of the canal is here.

Get informed and/or speak at some important meetings relating to the EPA Superfund proposed plan this week: 

 

Wed 1/23/13, 6:30-9:00pm P.S. 58, Carroll Gardens

Thurs 1/24/13 7:00-9:00pm PAL Miccio Center, Red Hook

*note that the Red Hook meeting starts later than the Carroll Gardens Meeting; that is not a typo!)

* Simultaneous Spanish translation will be available at the meeting in Red Hook.

EPA meeting flyers to share

English

Spanish/Español

EPA plan is here

The EPA is receiving public comments until March 28, 2013.  Comments may be sent to GowanusCanalComments.Region2@epa.gov.

Questions may be directed to

Natalie Loney

EPA
Community Involvement Coordinator
Tel 212-637-3639
Fax 212-637-4445

Loney.Natalie@epamail.epa.gov

Hard copies of the EPA Gowanus Superfund plan are at:

Carroll Gardens Library

396 Clinton St.

Brooklyn, NY 11231

Joseph Miccio Community Center

110 West 9th Street

Brooklyn, NY 11231

EPA-Region II

Superfund Records Center

290 Broadway, 18th Floor

New York, NY 10007-1866

212-637-4308

More background

The EPA plans to dredge (remove) toxic materials from the bottom of the canal, and mandates that New York City stop allowing sewage to run into the canal during rain storms.  Red Hook has been identified as a possible location to place dredge material in a “confined disposal facility” or CDF.  

There is currently a proposal for a Red Hook CDF at GBX-Gowanus Bay Terminal generated by GBX in consultation with the EPA. 

Any dredge material that would go into a local CDF would be of the least toxic grade (there are 3 levels of toxicity in the Gowanus) and would come from the Gowanus waters nearest GBX (eg, south of the Hamilton Avenue Bridge.)

In prior meetings, the EPA has also explained that dredge material could be remediated locally or shipped away for remediation.  The GBX-Gowanus Bay Terminal includes a proposal for local remediation at their site.

In plain English, remediation means that the dredge material has been treated so that it is no longer toxic to a degree that causes concern. 

Nearly half a billion dollars will be spent on remediation, so this Superfund process represents a chance for economic development and jobs in addition to the environmental clean-up. 

PortSide wants to encourage Red Hook to get more involved. 

Red Hook has been less involved with this Superfund process than other communities along the Gowanus Canal and Gowanus Bay.   

We encourage you to seek out a local community group, the Superfund “Community Advisory Group” or CAG (prounced like gag with a K at the start) whose members have a lot of expertise on the technical and environmental issues as well as the political process. The CAG is open to anyone, and could be a resource to Red Hook as this process moves forward.

Note, there is another Superfund site in New York City, the Newtown Creek.  The Newtown Creek Alliance is a community group very involved with their Superfund process, and the Newtown Creek Superfund CAG website is here

Help-the-Walking-Landmark-Celia-Cacace-Mayor-of-Carroll-Gardens

On Manhassett Place which was wiped out by the BQE

Celia Tribute Party
Launch of “Bring Celia Back from Wisconsin” Campaign

Sunday January 1/13/13, 3:30pm to 6:30pm, details

Celia Maniero Cacace

Fearless, feisty, loving and frank.  A champion of our community’s weaker members
biography by Carolina Salguero/Director/PortSide NewYork

Celia Maniero Cacace is the mother and walking memory of the neighborhood she still calls South Brooklyn Red Hook; that’s Carroll Gardens, Columbia Waterfront District and Red Hook for those of you got here after the 1960’s.

First Communion

To walk Court Street with the diminutive, doting Celia is to feel in the presence of a community Mayor. She’s stopped every few feet or hailed from across the street by seniors or children to share news or advice.

Having served as a one-woman social service agency for decades, 76-year old Celia is now in need of some help herself.  She is obliged to move from her apartment since the building is being sold, and she needs to find that rare, inexpensive place in a neighborhood where prices have soared beyond the fixed incomes of seniors.  Know someone who wants a granny au pair, or granny doorman?  A committee is forming to help her find a place; and if need be, help launch some fundraising to cover the gap between her fixed income and the rent.  She moves out of her current place on January 14 to her son’s in Wisconsin.

We are organizing a send-off party for Celia and a campaign to bring her back since it looks like she will be moving to Wisconsin on Monday 1/14/13 as no Brooklyn apartment has been found. The "Bring Celia Back" campaign kicks off Sunday January 1/13/13.  Everyone is invited. Please bring a memory of Celia if you can.

Celia’s life and prodigious memory describe a time when people stayed in a neighborhood—Celia has lived her whole life in 8 apartments within a 10 block radius— and when this area was largely Italian, as far back as when Italians still faced discrimination as the new immigrants. 

Even today, Celia’s back straightens as she says, “my older sister Jennie was one of the first Italian-Americans to knock down the walls on Wall Street.  She was an amazing mathematician.”

Graduation from PS 142 (8th grade)

Celia is the 8th child of nine, of parents from the Island of Ischia in Italy.  Her mother worked as a governess in France before emmigrating to the United States.  With pride, Celia says her mother gave birth to her last child at 51.  The family was displaced from 107 Rapelye Street for the construction of the BQE, an early experience with public works which might be what sharpened Celia’s ability to analyze land use issues.

Tomboy Celia broke her nose and ran with the boys until she was married in 1960 to the boy next door Joseph Cacace. 

She had two sons, Gregory and Robert, and was widowed early in 1979. 

Over the years, Celia’s community service had formal and informal components.

She served for more than twenty years as an active member of Community Board 6, on the Housing, Human Services, Economic development, Land Use, Landmark, Transportation, and City Properties Committees.  Celia has been recognized for her perfect attendance at CB6 meetings, which demonstrated her serious purpose and commitment to her appointment to the Community Board. Aside from keeping meticulous meeting notes in her famous black and white copy books in multiple color inks, Celia is also remembered for her "compound questions", as City Council member Brad Lander has noted.  

Celia’s role in CB6 and other public meetings was often the voice speaking truth to power.  Her private good works took the form of tending to the community’s weaker members without fanfare or public acknowledgement.

"Keeping company" with future husband Joey Cacace

That work followed the rhythms of the pre-blog, air conditioning and play date era when life was lived and information exchanged on the stoop and playgrounds, in street festivals and over laundry lines strung behind the brownstones.  Someone needing help would be told “go see Celia.”

Her helping likely began, she’s not keeping track, with coordinating summer jobs for youth of Italian American Club of South Brooklyn which had her run clean up crews for the annual Feast of Our Lady of Sorrow. That Feast began around 1945 and ran from Kane to Summit Street. Celia joined the tradition in the 1960s, and worked the feast until its waning years on Court Street in the 1980s. She found work for youth, and for adults, in the booths, worked with Sanitation to keep the feast site clean and well run and prevented fights between the teens.

Over the decades, she would get summer jobs for teens. She was firm about the rules. “You gotta get your parents to talk to me, kid”, to make sure they approved, “faccia a faccia” (“face to face” in Italian).   All her serious business is done faccia a faccia; forget the phone.

During the 70s and early 80s, she organized festivals in Carroll Park with clowns, concerts and DJs. Ever inclusive, she arranged for teens to have DJ time, and insisted they play some of everyone’s music, Italian, Puerto Rican, rock n roll and oldies. She also allowed teens to DJ before the feast and procession, cannily roping in and managing the younger generation. 

Celia and husband Joey at jazz club Birdland

“If they blasted the music, they had to account to me since I was the person speaking for them. I had a nice rapport, I never pointed my finger at them. If I had to talk to someone, I would walk them down the block and talked to them privately. If you talk to them in front of the other kids, then they would rank them out.”

Celia also helped reactivate the original Society of Mother Cabrini of South Brooklyn, and their feast and procession.  Celia has that rare combination of deep pride in her identity (a layering of family, ethnicity, neighborhood) and the ability to simultaneously support others affirming their own, plus the smarts to understand that everyone needs to be included for a community to work.

Ever the intermediary between groups, she facilitated special events like the 100th anniversary for the Norwegian Seaman’s Church (now condos), coordinating between the Scandinavians, the Italians and the police; and helped arrange donations for many churches not her own.

By the 1990s, she was ensconced at a desk at Postal Press on Court Street, where I first spotted her when I went in for photo copies.  Her small head would pop up from behind a desk piled high with clippings from local papers.  I observed a steady stream of people coming in to have hushed consultations over the counter with her:  problems with bad landlords, unfair evictions, seniors who didn’t understand their meds and had Celia be a liaison with the pharmacist, older Italians needing translation help, teens looking for jobs, people who needed help with city permits or were stymied by bureaucracy, or were just overwhelmed for whatever reason.

How Celia handled special event parking changes in 1978, with NYPD permission, of course!

By the 2000’s, I would catch up with Celia at Joe’s Restaurant on Court Street, where she spent hours every morning cutting clippings from local papers and serving as on-the-spot greeter, advisor and nanny. Many a weekend morning, I saw young parents come in for brunch and sit frazzled by their children. Celia would step in with toys she bought on sale or at stoop sales and then boiled and bleached at home. I could see parents relax and see them find time for one another as the tikes’ action was transferred to Celia.

Celia’s beef with the term “Carroll Gardens” is that she remembers the slight to her pride. This area was once redlined, her own family could not get a loan; and real estate brokers and other activists invented the term in the 60’s to help market the brownstone area and delineate it from what is now called Red Hook “across the tracks” of the BQE. Rather than rebranding where she lived and pulling away from others, Celia preferred to help get jobs for people from “the Hook” and to wear a t-shirt “I live in South Brooklyn Red Hook not Carroll Gardens and I’m proud of it.”  It’s a “love us for who we are, not who you want us to be” approach. She delivers a lot of love on the ground.

Several years back, I and Allison Prete, the director of the documentary film about the Gowanus Canal “Lavendar Lake” agreed that someone should make a documentary about Celia Cacace.  Her stories, meeting notes and clippings are legion.  As her apartment is being packed up, some 40 bankers’ boxes have already been transferred to an archivist, journalist and local historian.

Celia Cacace is mother and memory of this community which needs her as much as she needs to be here.  We are organizing a “Tribute to Celia” party for her and a campaign to bring her back. That kicks off Sunday January 1/13/13.  Everyone is invited. Please bring a memory of Celia if you can.

There is a great series of photos of Celia on the blog Pardon Me for Asking

Councilman Brad Lander and Celia at CB6 Holiday Party 2012

Celia Cacace Tribute Party

Sunday January 1/13/13

3:30pm to 6:30pm

Mama Maria’s Restaurant

307 Court Street

Brooklyn, NY 11231

$20 for everyone under 65, $10 for seniors

RSVP to Community Board 6

(718) 643-3027, ext 201

info@brooklyncb6.org

http://new.evite.com/l/UC4WH4GIFD

 

Did Celia live in your house?
Local addresses of Celia Cacace

Note taped to Celia's kitche wall from 5-year old who Celia gave a popsicle

107 Rapelye Street

288 Van Brunt Street

28 First Place

64 Third Place

252 President Street

271 Union Street

285 President Street

83 First Place


Recent stories about Celia Cacace


 

NY Post  http://www.nypost.com/video?freewheel=90081&sitesection=nypost_us_non_fro&VID=24173941

Daily News

#1  http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/carroll-gardens-mayor-celia-cacace-forced-neighborhood-article-1.1236000

#2 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/locals-last-minute-scramble-find-home-carroll-gardens-mayor-celia-cacace-article-1.1236918

ABC Eyewitness News http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/video?id=8946353

NBC covered by John Noel

Brooklyn Paper http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/36/2/dtg_celiacacacewisconsin_2013_01_11_bk.html

Brooklyn Eagle

http://www.brooklyneagle.com/articles/campaign-aims-bring-celia-cacace-back-home-carroll-gardens

Blogs

http://southbrooklynpost.com/2013/01/cecilia-cacace-may-have-to-move/

http://pardonmeforasking.blogspot.com/2013/01/please-come-to-celia-cacaces-tribute.html

http://carrollgardens.patch.com/articles/mayor-of-carroll-gardens-celia-maniero-cacace-forced-to-move

http://carrollgardens.patch.com/articles/mayor-of-carroll-gardens-celia-maniero-cacace-forced-to-move

 

 

PortSide-NewYork-Seeks-Spring-2013-interns

Photo by Will Van Dorp of Tugster

Spring 2013 internships at PortSide NewYork

Event planning… fundraising…community outreach… graphic design… social media… research…

Help change NYC’s waterfront!  Help us transition to a new home!  Work on a ship!
 
download this listing click

Join the innovative non-profit PortSide NewYork, a leader in waterfront advocacy and programming.

Our programs are a mix of maritime, preservation, forward-thinking urban planning, arts, education and community revitalization.

During the first month after hurricane Sandy, PortSide ran a pop-up Red Hook aid center, and we plan to have our cultural tourism programs support the area’s recovery from the storm.PortSide’s offices are on a historic ship the MARY A. WHALEN, which we use as a museum, mobile cultural platform and teaching tool.  The only oil tanker cultural center in the world, the MARY A. WHALEN is on the National Register of Historic Places and is docked in the Red Hook, Brooklyn container port.  Late December, PortSide announced that our seven-year search for a site looks to be ending with a prospective home at GBX•Gowanus Bay Terminal across Columbia Street from IKEA. Map See our program video below

With the transition to a new home in 2013, PortSide will create fundraiser events, launch an on-line campaign, and engage in community outreach.  Interns will wear many hats during this exciting time.

We seek dependable, organized workers for a small and social office. Enthusiasm for PortSide’s mission, and good research and writing skills are essential.  Familiarity with Photoshop, Illustrator and/or InDesign and website/blog maintenance is highly desirable.  A knowledge of boats or waterfront issues is a decided plus, but not required.

Positions are unpaid.  Send resume and availability via email.

The ideal candidates will be able to contribute to several of the tasks outlined below.

Fundraising and program planning 

As we transition to a new home, fundraising and capacity building will be our priorities, but we will be looking to create programs that can comfortably be executed during this period of institutional growth.  Interns will help plan events and execute outreach to potential new supporters, sponsors, program partners and venues; help launch a fundraising committee; be a liaison between all participants, set up meetings and conference calls; and help put out PR blasts about events and breaking news.

Interns need to be organized and capable of tracking communication between many people over time.

Programs are likely to include regular ship tours, some cultural events, and the creation of a new guide to Red Hook in both hard copy and web versions.

Design Intern:

Our 2013 transition to a new home and related fundraising means we will produce a lot of news, flyers, brochure updates and invitations.  We seek a graphic designer to make those and to create a new version of our guide to Red Hook (PDF) which will aid Red Hook’s recovery from Sandy.  An essential project is to help transition our website to an on-line design platform such as WordPress or Squarespace with better integration of our blog and Twitter feed.

Social Media 

Intern will do pre-production work to help maintain PortSide’s blog, Facebook, and Twitter by researching some content, distributing Sandy recovery updates from the Mayor’s office, downloading and resizing photos.  We would love an intern who has advanced Twitter skills.  Intern will do some maintenance of our constituent database on Constant Contact.

Grant Research and Applications

Tasks include research sources of funding for general support for PortSide (funding for capital, program and operating costs) conservation of MARY WHALEN logbooks, and our BoatBox project; updating our extant grant list; assisting staff in completing funding applications.

PortSide seeks IT help! pronto!

* getting internet to a ship, web design, linking social media portals, Twitter advice *

PortSide has been running a hurricane Sandy Relief pop-up at 351 Van Brunt Street where there was cable internet, but we are now moving back onto the tanker Mary A. Whalen, and IT issues on the ship are going to impede our Sandy digital work as well as our other operations.

MARY A. WHALEN

Having our offices on the ship has presented chronic internet access challenges.  There is no cable internet in the port near us, so we have tried various alternative strategies over the years.

1. Our internet speed on the ship dropped in September and plummeted after Sandy.  Our Clear modem signal is now down to one bar (container stacks in the way? We don't know!). We know we need a new hardware solution.

The galley serves as our conference room

2. We could use some help finishing the redesign of our website.   The new design will help us continue and improve our Sandy-related messaging on Twitter @PortSideNewYork and blog www.bitly.com/RHSandy.  We are part of the new Red Hook Coalition, formed to do Sandy Recovery work, and improving this social media stuff would really help us help Red Hook.

Half of the main PortSide office

Before Sandy, (that feels like years ago) we were transitioning our website to Wordpress. We've run into glitches, and on top of that want to customize the template; but we don't have enough tech saavy on our team to whack through this fast enough.  Urgent goal is to make our Sandy tweets, blog posts and Facebook updates visible on the home page, and we want a better design for other reasons and in other ways.

We could use advice to take our Twitter skills to a higher level... hoping there is a way to sort followers and followed into lists.

Please get in touch if you can help. Thanks!

PortSide-Hurricane-Sandy-Recovery-Effort

 
As of late February 2013 this is updated as info comes in and time allows.

We would appreciate funding to support this effort and our other Sandy refief efforts. To support this, see our webpage DONATE.

Short link for this page http://bit.ly/RHSandy  (case senstive)
more about PortSide at www.portsidenewyork.org

video about Red Hook Recovery and our role see     

Deadline to apply for FEMA aid extended to 3/29/13

FEMA Spanish  FEMA Arabic  FEMA Chinese

FEMA Haitian FEMA Hebrew FEMA Korean

FEMA Russian FEMA Tagalog FEMA Vietnamese

FEMA “Help After Disaster Guide” in many languages at http://www.fema.gov/help-after-disaster
 

Services at 351 Van Brunt Our walk-in aid center has been closed.  The back room behind the partition is still available for Sandy recovery meetings; if you want it, send an email.  We continue to provide new info here and our Twitter feed at @PortSideNewYork.

PortSide's home, the tanker MARY A. WHALEN weathered hurricane Sandy with minimal damage.  Not so our neighbors ashore in Red Hook. In response, PortSide set up a Sandy recovery station at 351 Van Brunt Street. Thanks to Realty Collective for 351's space, internet, electricity. Thanks to their tenant Gallery Brooklyn for sharing the space!

IMPORTANT If your heat is still not back on due to Sandy, please see this video to avoid starting a fire if you are using space heaters.

TEXT Needs/Damages to (347)778-0570

Format TEXT as Need @ Your Location

(i.e. "Gas, Water Pump @ Van Brundt and Pioneer Brooklyn")

TEXT Needs/Damages to (347)778-0570

Format TEXT as Need @ Your Location

(i.e. "Gas, Water Pump @ Van Brundt and Pioneer Brooklyn")

TEXT Needs/Damages to (347)778-0570

Format TEXT as Need @ Your Location

(i.e. "Gas, Water Pump @ Van Brundt and Pioneer Brooklyn")

Red Hook Sandy volunteers

• Fri Sat Sun 10am-4pm walk-in sign-up at 360 Van Brunt Street opposite the school playground.
• Mon-Thur contact redhookvolunteers.org 718-306-9149, redhookvolunteers@gmail.com 

Educate yourself about future risk of flooding
See our blogpost with Jim McMahon's map of Red Hook Sandy flooding which shows land elevations (height above sea water) and PortSide instructions on how to calculate tide + surge to determine possible flood levels near you.


Red Hook Sandy Meetings + Workshops
 

Fri 3/1/13 10am-6pm NYS Department of Financial Services Mobil Command Center (MCC) will be located at 402 Van Brunt Street this Friday, March 1^st from 10am – 6pm.  Flyer   Bring all relevant documents with you when you visit the MCC, such as correspondence with your insurer or bank. If you can’t visit the MCC in person, get help with insurance issues or file complaints via the NYS Disaster Relief site www.nyinsure.ny.gov or by calling the Disaster Relief Hotline at 1-800-339-1759 Mon to Fri, 8am to 8pm; Sat and Sun, 10am to 5pm.

Fri 3/1/13 Red Hook Fairway re-opens. Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Miss America are attending. No word on when or if Fine Fare supermarket opposite the NYCHA housing will re-open.
 
Fri 3/1/13 10am-12pm at Red Hook Initiative. Lawyers Alliance of New York Workshop and individual consultation for non-profits and faith-based organizations, in recognition of how they stepped up to serve after Sandy.  "Now it is time to mobilize in support of Red Hook's nonprofit and faith-based organizations and to examine what these organizations will need to recover from the storm and support long-term rebuilding efforts. RSVP and details here


Wed 11/14/12  5pm Community Meeting at PS 27  Minutes

Thurs 11/8/12 6:30pm architect Jim Garrison advised building owners about how to rebuild, negotiate FEMA process etc. info  We will post follow-up info 

Recovery guides
Advice on health issues caused by Sandy info

NYS Senator Velmanette Montgomery highly recommended March 2013 guide to new National Flood Maps & National Flood insurance.  See pg 4



NYS Senator Velmanette Montgomery Older recovery guide

New York City Bar guide for residents and businesses 46 page guide

Start Small Think Big Start Small Think Big builds small businesses and grows financial empowerment in NYC's most underserved communities. Thanks to Sandy, PortSide is helping to bring them into Red Hook. Their guide


General Recovery info:

Deadline to apply for FEMA aid extended to 3/29/13 

FEMA en Espanol

NYC Housing Recovery office (new since Sandy) website and on Twitter @NYCHousingRecov

SIRR (NYC Special Initiative for Rebuilding + Resiliency) is a special long-term effort to plan for resilient (more storm-proof) rebuilding after Sandy. The SIRR office itself is a short-term project which works with existing city, state and federal agencies and has the deadline of creating a rebuilding and resilience report by May.  That report will shape how the federal Sandy funds coming to NYC will be allocated and will shape NYC policy about rebuilding over a longer term. SIRR asks for community input.  It is time to step up and speak up everyone!!!  As of 2/27/13 SIRR has no website up yet, so keep coming back here for info until www.nycsirr.org goes live.

Thurs 3/7/13 7:30pm SIRR meeting for Red Hook, Gowanus, and Sunset Park***  P.S. 58, 330 Smith Street, Brooklyn, NY 11231 RSVP requested! Get RSVP info and more here.   

***Sit tight, Williamsburg, DUMBO and Greenpoint; your meeting will be the following week.
 
NYCHA rent abatement info

NYCHA Sandy Recovery Jobs Immediate temp jobs avail in NYCHA  developments. Individuals affected by Hurricane Sandy strongly encouraged to apply.  Recruitment Event, Mon 12/10/12 9am-12:30pm Red Hook PAL Miccio Community Center,110 W 9th Street, info
 
NYS Dept. of Labor Sandy Clean-Up Jobs Call 1-888-469-7365 or www.labor.ny.gov/sandyjobs or visit a Restoration Center (see below). You must be unemployed to be eligible. Pay is around $15/hour to work on cleaning and repair projects in declared disaster areas. info

NYLAG "NYLAG provides free civil legal services to New Yorkers who cannot afford a private attorney" Storm line 212-584-3365 info 

FEMA application advice for non-profits (via Mayor's office)
briefing sessions Fri 11/16 10am-2pm and 2pm-4pm
Mon 11/19 10am to 12pm and 2pm-4pm Info *** FEMA non-profit deadline extended to 12/31/12 apply to NYS OEM http://www.dhses.ny.gov/oem/recovery/  OR fax forms to 518-322-4984



NYC Rapid Repair Program Provides contractors to building owners (this spares you risk of contractor fraud**) and costs are paid directly by FEMA. If approved, you will NOT need to pay upfront for repairs and wait for reimbursement. Note Electricity must be on first.  Contractors, to sign up to work, call 311.

1. First, you need to register with FEMA + get FEMA ID. Do that via  DisasterAssistance.gov, calling 1-800-621-3362 or go to the IKEA Red Hook restaurant to see FEMA there.
2. Call 311 or go to NYC.gov with your FEMA ID number.
3. You will be contacted withing 48 hours by a inspector/contractor
4. If who want to know "when is my area scheduled?" Call 311 or Visit a Restoration Center.
5. For other types of questions (missed appointment, question about the kind of work being done, etc): call 1 866-210-8084 
6. If you have a question about work completed by Rapid Repairs, call  (212) 615-8366 or email: RapidRepairsCare@recovery.nyc.gov

Rapid Repairs team promises to will work closely with City agencies, including the Department  of Buildings, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to make sure that necessary inspections and certifications are done quickly.

** doing repairs on your own/suspect contractor fraud?  File complaints with Dept of Stat 800-697-1220 dos.ny.gov  http://bit.ly/11CEcKP

NYC suspending water bills until 6/1/13 for customers whose properties were severely damaged by Sandy.

NYC offering property tax relief for Sandy damaged buildings:interest-free extension on the next property tax bill for owners whose homes damaged beyond repair or need “extensive structural repairs before they can be re-inhabited." press release and analysis by Crains

National Grid is providing a $150 rebate when gas is reconnected.

Sales tax exemptions on purchases of rebuilding materials and  equipment for businesses info

Homeowner re-occupancy guidelines info
 
Gowanus Canal water toxicity concerns EPA sampling results

Food Stamps  
NEW Disaster Food Stamps (D-SNAP) for Sandy victims application period has closed.
 

Alternative housing

Airbnb free housing in other people's homes info


Short-term apartment listings 

Family to Family program sign up to provide a space or say you need one info

Wall Street Journal suggests there is available space in FEMA-paid hotels info

Replacing lost documents (SS card; ID cards, birth certificates). Scroll down two screenloads for tips from the Gov. Cuomo's office info 

Aid for Artists
Joe's Pub list of resources  
Park Avenue Armory temp space for artists info

PEN grants for writers affected by Hurricane Sandy info 

Red Hook Small Business update
Support Red Hook and shop the following stores re-opened: Brooklyn Crab, Steve's Key Lime Pie, Baked, Fort Defiance, Hope+Anchor, home/made, The Good Fork, Botta DiVino, Dry Dock (moved north to Van Brunt+Wolcott), Metal+Thread, Foxy+Winston, Erie Basin, Cute Bicycle Shop, Bait+Tackle, Ice House, Wen Gee Chinese Food. Support revival of our small retail businesses by donating to ReStore Red Hook

Tiburon closing 1/27/13 due to rent increase by landlord.

Many businesses are running their own fundraising. Links posted as we get 'em!

Court Street Grocers http://smallknot.com/court-street-grocers

The Good fork http://www.gofundme.com/1h4pdg

Flickinger Glass http://www.gofundme.com/FlickingerGlassworks

Fort Defiance http://fortdefiancebrooklyn.com/products-page/

Home/Made http://www.gofundme.com/HomeMade

Kevin’s Restaurant http://www.luckyant.com/brooklyn/red-hook/index.html

Red Hook Lobster Pound http://smallknot.com/red-hook-lobster-pound
Steve's Key Lime Pie http://www.gofundme.com/1ire9o

Sunny’s Bar http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/532302555/bring-sunnys-back-home

NYC EDC aid to businesses various forms of support info printable form here

Fundraising
Gallery Brooklyn, co-host with Realty Collective of PortSide's 351 Van Brunt Sandy aid center, gave 10% of the proceeds from the show up during Sandy to Red Hook recovery.

New ReStore Red Hook Fund to support Sandy recovery of the small businesses so essential to serving Red Hook, sustaining the vibe and making us a destination info  See their moving video

Brooklyn Recovery Fund, a joint effort of the Brooklyn Community Foundation, Brooklyn Borough President, Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce created a pooled fund to support Brooklyn non-profits working in areas most affected by Sandy. Text ‘Brooklyn’ to 25383 to donate $10 to this fund.  11/30/12 Red Hook has received a Community Collaborative Grant $100,000 grant from this fund! info
 
Past Fundraisers - listed so you can find and still support these causes
Sat 12/1- Sun 12/2 fundraising workshop for She-Weld art forge run by Marsha Trattner. She-Weld was featured in BRIC video about artists affected by Sandy. Try blacksmithing yourself and make holiday presents with visiting master Blacksmith Charles Cooper from San Antonio. info   

Sat 12/1, 6-12pm “Flooded Art” fundraiser, Kidd Yellin Gallery, Imlay Street, Red Hook. Buy storm damaged art to raise money for artists hurt by Sandy. info Wall Street Journal article

Sat 12/1, 6-12pm 7pm - 11 pm Fundraiser for Sunny's Bar, Hamilton Gallery Theater, 498 Court Street, Brooklyn, NY 11231 (between Luquer + Nelson).  Sunny's was huge in making the new Red Hook. Back in the day, his was the only place open to the public at night (as opposed to the VFW and K of C). Open only one night a week (Friday) and operating as a private club, busloads would come in from Williamsburg to mingle with harbor workers, old-timers and the pioneers of the new Red Hook. The bar was our town hall, open for meetings of all sorts. Please help Sunny's! info

Buy a bike jersey fundraiser - Order by 12/1/12 short or long sleeved Red Hook jersey: Red Hook Criterium + race sponsor Castelli teamed up to make this fundraiser jersey. info

Tues 11/27/12 7:30-9:30pm BrooklynBased and Work It Brooklyn offer a night of food, beer, and stories about kitchen mishaps and surviving Sandy with Brooklyn chefs, followed by Work It Brooklyn's signature speed networking sessions for food professionals. Food and raffle giveaways. Raffle and ticket sales will benefit ReStore Red Hook

Wed 11/21/12 7pm Jalopy Theatre + Friends Musical Extravaganza starring Rosanne Cash plus Alex Battles and the Whisky Spitter Rebellion and screening "B6" A film by Michael Buscemi. Supports ReStore Red Hook Tickets $30 info

Wed 11/14 Literary Benefit Wed 11/14 proceeds go to RestoreRedHook.org

Mon 11/12 Brooklyn Greenway held a fundraiser where 100% of funds will be donated to Brooklyn Recovery Fund. Thank you BGI!  

ANIMAL ISSUES - Thanks to Red Hook Dog Rescue for getting us this info

• ASPCA. The ASPCA is helping rescue stranded pets as well as giving pet food to those in need. They have a dedicated emergency pet rescue hotline and have been going door to door looking for abandoned animals.
• Sean Casey Animal Rescue. This group has been taking in a lot of rescued and abandoned pets, especially dogs, from the shore areas of Brooklyn, which were hit particularly hard. But they also have taken in turtles, birds, cats and snakes. See moving BRIC video about them here
• Alley Cat Allies. This group has been all over NY + NJ feeding feral cats who survived storm, including the famous outdoor cats of the Atlantic City boardwalk, most of whom miraculously survived Sandy.
• Help with pets 347-573-1561.  Pet food is at Visitation Church. 

Past Mayor's Office Updates:

• 11/26/12 (Mayor announces that landlords must make repairs or face enforcement proceedings)
• 11/20/12
• 11/18/12 (a lot info on building condemnation, green + reg tags)
• 11/16/12

City-Council-Waterfront+Parks-hearing-Greenpoint-Williamsburg-Waterfront-Open-Space-Master-Plan

 

New York City Council Committee on Waterfronts hearing, held jointly with Parks Committee

Thurs 6/14/12, 1pm

250 Broadway, 16th Floor Committee Room

Some background info at bottom 

June 1, 2012

From: hearings@council.nyc.ny.us [mailto:hearings@council.nyc.ny.us]
Sent: Friday, June 01, 2012 2:30 PM
To: 

Subject: New York City Council - Hearing Notice

RE:              Oversight: Greenpoint-Williamsburg Waterfront Open Space Master Plan: Status of Development

                    Please be advised that the Committee on Waterfronts, jointly with the Committee on Parks and Recreation will hold a hearing on Thursday, June 14, 2012 at 1:00 p.m. in the 16th Floor Committee Room, 250 Broadway, New York, NY regarding the above-referred topic.

You are hereby invited to attend this hearing and testify therein.  Please feel free to bring with you such members of your staff you deem appropriate to the subject matter.

If you plan to participate, it would be greatly appreciated if you could bring twenty (20) copies double-sided of your written testimony to the hearing.  Due to increased building security procedures, please bring identification and; allot some extra time for entry through the building lobby.

              I would appreciate receiving a response from you as to whether or not you will be able to attend. Thank you for your cooperation.              

Sincerely,

                                                                      

Gary Altman

Legislative Counsel

---------

Parks Department "Greenpoint-Williamsburg Waterfront" http://www.nycgovparks.org/park-features/future-parks/greenpoint-williamsburg-waterfront

DCP The Greenpoint-Williamsburg Waterfront Access Plan 

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/greenpointwill/greenwateraccess2.shtml

OpSail-Cruises-on-Classic-Harbor-Lines-Yachts

A very classy way to help PorSide and enjoy a grand celebration of ships in New York Harbor.

Classic Harbor Lines has offered to donate 50% of the ticket price of their OpSail cruises directly to PortSide if you reference us when purchasing the tickets. 

On Wednesday, May 23^rd hundreds of ships will parade through the harbor as part of OpSail 2012, a multi-city event run by the group Operation Sail. Two of the Classic Harbor Lines yachts, the Schooners Adirondack and America 2.0, will be participating in the parade and will be taking passengers. The parade goes from 8am to 12:30pm. There is also a shorter spectator run on the Yacht Manhattan from 8.30am to 10.15am.

The ticket price for this event on both the Adirondack and America 2.0 is $120 and the shorter cruise on the Manhattan is $85.

Download these pdfs for details about the Adirondack and America 2.0

Call Meghan @ 212-627-1825 ext 1502 to make your reservations or email at Meghan@sail-nyc.com

Vote-for-tug-Pegasus-&-Museum-Barge-to-win-big!

Vote to fund the only boats in the $3MM grant competition from American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation that will fund sites in NYC!  

 

Vote for PortSide's friends and partners,the Tug Pegasus & Waterfront Museum Barge! 

Vote early and often!  Seriously! 

Vote every day from April 26 through May 21 at www.partnersinpreservation.com so that these two great historic ships can win a share of the grant money.

To make it easier to remember to vote AND to be eligible to win a July 4th fireworks cruise for two on the tug Tugboat Pegasus, visit the website of either the Tug Pegasus Preservation Project or the Waterfront Museum barge and sign-up to receive a daily reminder to vote and you will automatically be entered into the raffle. 

David Sharps (L) of Museum Barge, Pam Hepburn (R) of Tug Pegasus

Support NYC’s floating cultural heritage. Vote for historic ships!  Let American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation know that boats count!  

The fine print:

• American Express, partnering with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, is committing $3 million in preservation grants to historic places in New York City through its community-based program, Partners in Preservation. 
• From April 26 May 21, 2012, the public is invited to vote for its favorite historic places from a diverse slate of 40 sites in the New York City area. Everyone is invited to vote (one vote per person per day)
• Guaranteed funding of $250,000 goes to the top three places, so get voting!  The tug and barge have been selected for this competition after a LONG process, so let's make it pay off!
• Additional grants will be awarded to a number of the other sites after review by American Express, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and an advisory committee composed of New York civic and preservation leaders. 

School group visiting the Museum Barge

 

Teens from Chinese American Planning Council during Maritime Adventure Program on the tug Pegasus