Mariners, please share your Sandy stories here for the benefit of all

Dear Mariners (ones on contemporary ships and historic ones) as we build up to the 2-year anniversary of hurricane Sandy, we invite you to tell you Sandy stories and share your photos here.  We ask you to join us in an educational project.

A goal of PortSide NewYork is to bring the community ashore and community ashore closer together. Sharing Sandy stories is one important way to do that.  We have found that most people ashore in NYC don’t know the mariners’ Sandy story, from prevention, to riding out the storm, to damages incurred, to recovery work -- usually recovery work while being damaged from Sandy.  

In the way that PortSide told the mariners’ response to 9/11 in an exhibit, we would like to do that with Sandy, and we’d like to start that project here.  

We believe that resiliency planning in NYC should involve hearing from the people who build the bulkheads and piers (and who will build any of the sea walls being proposed), marine salvors and equipment suppliers who pump the flooded tunnels, the crew and companies who move the fuel everyone was so desperate to have after Sandy, who clear the channels of debris so imports could arrive by ship, who build and run the emergency ferries, and companies that use boats like dinner boats in emergency response ways, etc.

We also believe mariners can have an important role in preparing communities for floods by helping teach awareness of marine weather, by bringing coastal living skills to New Yorkers living at the water's edge who lack those skills.

There are coastal parts of NYC where communities retain what were traditional coastal skills in abundance, the Rockaways, City Island, parts of Staten Island, where bayman, watermen, boatmen (and women) live, work and play; but large parts of NYC’s waterfront are now populated by people who have little sense of the water along which they live.

PortSide has designed some programs to share knowledge of the water with such people, and we’d like to see if we could kick off that conversation here.

What echoes in our ears is what we heard so often in the Sandy aid center we ran in Red Hook when people explained why they did not prep for Sandy either by evacuating or executing protective measures “they warned us about Irene, and nothing happened.”

This request is also on our two Facebook pages (Mary A. Whalen and PortSide NewYork) for people who would rather share there.

Sandy aid (grant & loan) for homeowner repairs

Van Brunt at Pioneer Street, image courtesy of Erinmelina, from Gotham Gazette, used under Creative Commons license.

Sandy aid for Homeowner Repairs

Combo of $15,000 loan for 5 years at 2% and $15,000 grant = $30,000 with both.

We heard that the deadline for this is approaching. If you know or find out when it is, please post that as a comment!

Thank you Andrea Sansom for providing this info!

Authorization for Credit Report (Non-Borrower)

ER loan grant package

Contact person:

Raquel Colon, Senior Housing Counselor

Asian Americans for Equality CDF

111 Division Street

New York, N.Y. 10002

Tel: 212 964-2288

Fax: 212 964-6003

email: raquel@aafecdf.org

www.aafecdf.org

PortSide NewYork & hidden Sandy stories, ours & others

At the two-year anniversary of hurricane Sandy, PortSide NewYork is telling our Sandy story, a story largely hidden, like so many in Red Hook.  We believe our story offers hope and guidance for the future. That’s because our maritime perspective explains how we knew to prepare for Sandy, made us available to help Red Hook’s Sandy recovery, and is a knowledge base we want to share to make you safer from floods in the future.

PortSide NewYork was founded to help change awareness and use of NYC’s BLUEspace, the water part of the waterfront.  New York City’s area is one third water, and contains 29 islands.  PortSide’s goal is to create a place that will showcase what NYC’s waterfront can really be.  Our ship, the tanker MARY A. WHALEN, is an ambassador in that goal and our endeavor to bring the community ashore and the community afloat, the maritime community, closer together.  Here’s our Sandy story:

Please help us continue this kind of resiliency work and reporting. Buy a ticket to our fundraiser Tues 10/28/14 or donate

Sandy prevention: Saving a historic ship

Thursday, 10/25/12, 1pm, Sandy minus 4.5 days, PortSide’s crew said good-bye to a class trip of first graders visiting the MARY A. WHALEN and started hurricane prep, punching our way thru the list of what we did for Irene the year before. 

During the next four and a half days, we traded strategies with historic ships and modern workboats around the harbor. We all laid in food, water and fuel; tested generators; and moved our boats to safer places. PortSide curator Peter Rothenberg, shipcat Chiclet and Director Carolina Salguero are storm crew on the MARY A. WHALEN.  

The maritime community obsessively followed marine weather reports. “Grim installments are burned in my memory,” said Carolina Salguero. “At Sandy minus 1.5 days, we learned an 8-foot surge is coming.  At Sandy minus a few hours, I am readying for a 12 foot surge.”

Ashore in Red Hook, things were different. Sunday night, Sandy minus 24 hours, an email blast went out telling Red Hook which bars will be open and what movies are being screened.  Carolina worried, “Is the community ashore prepping for Sandy? Has anyone evacuated?” PortSide’s maritime world felt separated from neighbors ashore by more than the containerport fence. 

Peter Rothenberg was valiant. “When Carolina got word that the storm surge was expected to be 12 or 13 feet high, I had visions of the MARY tipping over onto the pier and emphatically agreed with the idea of securing a preventer line to the next pier 265 feet away.”

Due to preparations, our ship MARY WHALEN safely rode out the surge with our office aboard, enabling every form of Sandy assistance we delivered to Red Hook afterwards.  

Peter and Carolina came ashore on Wednesday afternoon to discover a devastated Red Hook, and immediately decided that PortSide’s urgent search for a publicly-accessible homeport was flooded to a standstill and that we would help Red Hook until waterfront sites recovered enough for us to resume real estate talks. 

Appreciation from Red Hook

Adam Armstrong, Pioneer Street resident and writer of the blog “View from the Hook” describes what happened next, “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.  Carolina Salguero and her team of volunteers co-ordinated clean-out crews and 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 – Carolina 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.” 

What made that work possible was the selflessness of three people PortSide is honoring at our fundraiser on Tuesday, October 28 at Hometown. Victoria Hagman donated Realty Collective’s storefront and utilities at 351 Van Brunt, despite suffering extensive flood damage herself.  Park Slope electrician Danny Schneider walked into 351 and offered free labor. PortSide coordinated his work, and Danny reports that he inspected and certified 60 buildings and repaired some two dozen for just the cost of parts. 

Our third honoree, our Curator Peter Rothenberg worked both ends of PortSide’s recovery story, the prevention that saved the MARY WHALEN and the aid work after the storm of setting up and running 351.

Peter, Carolina and Dan Goncharoff of PortSide ran 351 for a month and then continued a virtual aid station and other recovery efforts out of view. In April 2013, PortSide won a White House award for Sandy recovery work, and in July, the New York State Senate honored our work.  

PortSide work transitions from recovery to resiliency

Carolina began attending resiliency conferences. Summer 2013, she was asked to become a member of Red Hook’s NY Rising committee to create local resiliency plans.  PortSide staff and interns did research supporting the committee (which includes bone, two, three, and four and several pages on our website) during the committee's eight months of work. 

One of Carolina’s NY Rising goals was to inject maritime issues into the discussion, hoping the State NY Rising process could influence a state agency, the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), so waterfront infrastructure in NYC can be more repaired and built for both resiliency and everyday operations.  Carolina also proposed the solar-powered emergency lights for NYCHA housing which are in Red Hook’s plan and are being considered for other NYCHA developments. “I think the NY Rising committee work is good. Red Hook distinguished itself for what we put in our plan,” says Carolina; but plans are hidden assets for most people until they are built. 

Looking back on PortSide’s two years of Sandy-related work, for the sake of Red Hook’s planning better for the future, we would like to talk about some hidden Sandy stories of need and success we found in the course of our recovery and resiliency work.

Hidden Sandy stories of need and success

PortSide’s recovery work helped many people who don’t get media coverage and whose cases deserve more attention:  People without an advocacy group, without on-line fundraising.  People who aren’t comfortable using computers and needed Peter’s help to complete digital forms. People in mixed-use buildings that don’t fit FEMA homeowner funding guidelines. Renters who are not in NYCHA, and so are not in the media and political spotlights.  Seniors, immigrants. People whose divorce, estate and tax situations complicated filing for aid and kept them from speaking up in public meetings.  People who are private about their needs in general.

We learned that some affordable flood prevention was possible: The owners of Metal & Thread used a few hundred dollars of hardware store supplies to keep water from coming into their storefront and through the sidewalk hatch -- though their cellar suffered water leaking through the foundation from the empty lot next door.  Some tugboat crews saved their cars by moving them from Erie Basin to the second floor garage at Home Depot, above surge level.

IKEA’s contribution needs more attention. IKEA gave and gave and got no media coverage until the Sandy’s one year anniversary when their $250,000 investment in solar powering the Rec Center netted some articles.  

The power of connecting the community ashore and community afloat

Inland Red Hook is so disconnected from maritime Red Hook that the latter’s role in recovery is not discussed.  For example, Jim Tampakis’ business Marine Spares was significant in pumping out the Brooklyn Battery/Hugh L. Carey tunnel.  Vane Brothers provided hoses to the Hess fuel terminal at the foot of Court Street so home heating oil could be delivered. Both firms did that despite flood damage to their offices and mechanical shops.

PortSide feels the gap between inland resident and mariner is acute when we heard residents say “They told us to evacuate for Irene but nothing happened” and “I didn’t know there were two high tides a day.”  We conclude that people ashore poorly understand marine weather reports and don’t know where to get them.  

In comparison, mariners understand how to live with water, and how to prepare for hurricanes. They do the post-flood work of pumping tunnels, building ferry terminals and running emergency ferries, fixing bulkheads, clearing the harbor of debris so ships can import products as diverse as fuel, orange juice, new cars, bananas.  

To bring maritime voices to people ashore, PortSide plans programs to help folks develop coastal living and flood prep skills, such as educational events with actual mariners, exhibits, and creating a children’s book with our shipcat Chiclet as a resiliency narrator talking about riding out Sandy on the tanker.

Andrea Sansom, who founded the Red Hook flood mitigation Google group, sees the need, “We all love living at the water, and PortSide is here to help bring understanding to living with the water.”

Our ship is a great tool for this. Our tanker MARY A. WHALEN is now a maritime symbol of resiliency, in contrast to the tanker JOHN B. CADDELL, Staten Island’s symbol of Sandy, which went aground and had to be scrapped.

PortSide’s own Sandy damages

A hidden Sandy story PortSide feels acutely is that of our own Sandy damages.  An electrical short left us facing thirty-five nights of relying on flashlights and one 15-amp extension cord attached to a little gas generator.  Sandy damaged the Sheepshead Bay house of our staffer John Weaver keeping him home for many months.  Everything PortSide had off the ship (antique crane, 60’ dock, electrical transformer, restoration engine parts, historic artifacts and documents, special event equipment and furniture) was flood-damaged or floated away. Our FEMA worksheet totals some $340,000, and we are still deep in that paper chase, starting six months late because we were misinformed that we don’t qualify. 

A massive Sandy effect on PortSide was the stalling of our urgent search for a homeport.  We need a place to fulfill our mission, earn revenue, and run programs. Resumption of real estate negotiations took many, many more months than we expected, and remains a major strain on PortSide.

PortSide is now focused on the future while celebrating the good in recovery. Come join us in that spirit at our fundraiser on Tuesday, October 28 at Hometown Bar-B-Que. Join us in honoring our partners in Red Hook’s Sandy recovery: Victoria Hagman of Realty Collective, Danny Schneider the electrician, and Peter Rothenberg.  Wear festive MARY WHALEN red and white.  We look forward to talking with you there and, going forward, continuing the work we’ve collectively begun after Sandy in understanding our waterfront in all its complexity and potential!

Mayor de Blasio announces new park equity plan & funding

Photo and caption from article today in New York Times:  Saratoga Ballfields, Brownsville, Brooklyn. Photo by Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

News & Background

Park Equity News from Gotham Gazette

Park Equity News from New York Times

Valentino Park Comfort Station proposed Parks Department plan. This became so large, in part, due to FEMA requirements that a new building in coastal flood zone be elevated.

Message to Red Hook

Dear Red Hook:

Thinking of the Valentino Park and Coffey Park discussions, above is info about citywide discussions about ‪#‎parkequity‬ to get funding to underserved neighborhoods. Mayor Bill de Blasio will announce a new plan today with $130MM in funding to go to 35 parks.

This is encouraging news in and of itself (we support more going to communities that have less) and seems like a good time to bring to citywide level one of the issues that our Valentino Comfort station has brought up, eg, how to keep costs down.

$130MM will not go far if 4 toilet stalls cost $2.4MM.

Let's find ways to engage constructively in a citywide discussion about how to improve parks for all. Better, cheaper, smaller potties for us could be the start of something bigger for all. All word play intended.

It would be good for Red Hook to bear in mind, that though many feel this community was slighted for years, by now Red Hook has revitalized so much we are NOT as underserved as places like Brownsville are.

Thanks to NYS Senator Daniel Squadron for his work on #parkequity and to Councilman Carlos Menchaca for bringing the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation to the community table for meetings about waterfront parks in Red Hook and Sunset Park.

"Boats block the view" & other odd & boat-unfriendly NYC concepts

PortSide was founded to bring change to NYC’s waterfront, to make the waterways better used, to bring boats to communities, to change NYC policy. 

Via our visiting vessel program, and by inventing Kayak Valet, we have brought many boats to Brooklyn, but getting the permits and the access was crushingly tough (except for Kayak Valet which was a breeze, and we are thrilled that the term and practice is now common in NYC.)

Thanks to our eight-year real estate search to create a place called PortSide NewYork, a home for our MARY A. WHALEN and visting vessels of all types, we have studied and/or negotiated with over 20 sites in NYC.  This means we know where the opportunities - and the obstacles - are.  We are funneling what we’ve learned to policy makers, and will soon start a public awareness campaign.

The city has piers that are designated for boats that were not built well for boats.  The city has rules that add other layers of impediments. 

Did you know that historic houses in NYC Parks have resident housekeepers, but New York City policy often prohibits resident shipkeepers who would similarly protect and maintain historic ships?

Did you know that NYC has a policy that states “boats block the view”? Buildings face no such absolute prohibition. Building zoning is calibrated to building function, size, location.  “Boats block the view” has kept our MARY A. WHALEN off several piers. We’re out to change that rule, and others.

NYC has a reputation on the eastern seaboard for being a boat-unfriendly town. The thrust of NYC's first 20 years of waterfront revitalization, before Vision 2020, was getting people to the water's edge NOT onto, into or using the water itself.

The impediments prevent non-profit and commercial marine operators alike. They prevent major maritime festivals and single historic ships from visiting NYC, and prevent NYC's own historic ships from easily moving around the city to serve the public.  Such impediments limit dinner, charter and excursion boat options, community sailing programs, marinas, kayaking programs and the workboat sector of the industrial waterfront.

Would you like more boats in your community? Summer ship camp? After school programs afloat?  More maritime jobs? The chance to take a dinner cruise or leave on fly fishing cruise from your own neighborhood?  Activity on a dormant pier in your neighborhood?  Do you have a boat, boating program or business looking for a space in NYC?  Leave us a comment below to let us know.

Help us continue this work and grow our programs

Support our fundraiser on Tuesday 10/28/14 “Resiliency is our HOOK.” Buy a ticket. Become a sponsor. Join the Host Committee and help sell tickets before the event. It will be a fun event with the rollicking Dixieland jazz of the Red Hook Ramblers and the great food and casual ambiance of Hometown Bar-B-Que restaurant.  We greatly appreciate your support!   As do the people and businesses who benefit from our resiliency work!

Future plans for last of her kind, the tanker MARY A. WHALEN

We have news.

The MARY A. WHALEN is now the last of her kind in the USA. That’s because the tanker JOHN B. CADDELL, Staten Island’s symbol of Sandy’s wrath, has been scrapped. (See slide show right.)

Hurricane Sandy put the JOHN B. CADDELL on EDC property and cost the City a lot of money in fuel spill abatement, ship removal, ship storage and legal fees before the Sherriff’s auction.

At PortSide, we are very proud that we saved our MARY A. WHALEN from Sandy damage AND from damaging the property of others by breaking loose or riding up on to the pier.

Thanks to that, the MARY A. WHALEN is now a symbol of resilience, as is PortSide NewYork! Only the tough survive eight years of operating as a pop-up while looking for a home as we have.

Future-oriented mission for our historic ship

We love our historic ship and want to make clear that we use her for a forward-looking purpose.

PortSide was founded to bring change to NYC’s waterfront and waterways, by advocacy and by the example of business and programs at a place called PortSide NewYork that we will create.  The MARY A. WHALEN is our ambassador on that mission and will come and go from that place spreading the message, and our programs.

We recently retooled our official language to make the relationship of tanker and PortSide, our present and our future clearer.  Here it is. Let us know what you think. We welcome your feedback!

PortSide is a living lab creating a vision for 21st century urban waterfronts – and waterways.  Our focus is the water part, the BLUEspace, the Sixth Borough of NYC.

Our goal is to create a place that shows how to combine the working waterfront, public access and community development.

Our education, culture, workforce development and neighborhood promotion programs - all on a water theme –bring the community afloat and the community ashore together – for the benefit of all.

Building on our Sandy recovery work - which won us an award from the White House and honors from the NYS Senate - PortSide is developing flood preparedness and resiliency programs and will curate and house a resiliency center.

We export our programs via our ambassador, the historic ship, the MARY A. WHALEN, the only oil tanker in the world delivering public programs.

Help us continue this work and grow our programs

Support our fundraiser on Tuesday 10/28/14 “Resiliency is our HOOK.” Buy a ticket. Become a sponsor. Join the Host Committee and help sell tickets before the event. It will be a fun event with the rollicking Dixieland jazz of the Red Hook Ramblers and the great food and casual ambiance of Hometown Bar-B-Que restaurant.  We greatly appreciate your support!   As do the people and businesses who benefit from our resiliency work!

Upcoming Meeting #3 Valentino Park Comfort Station Issue 10/9/14 7pm PS15

see January 2018 update at bottom

THURSDAY 10/9, 7:00pm at PS 15

Next Red Hook meeting about Valentino Park Comfort Station:  Note, this is a change from the originally announced date of 10/8!

People for Red Hook Public Parks (PRHPP) set up this meeting. Here is their REVISED announcement PDF

Here is Parks Department proposed comfort station

For background, see our prior blogposts:

Report on Meeting #1:  9/4/14 Meeting with Carlos Menchaca & Parks at Red Hook library

Background info: Parks Dept. proposed comfort station & the process

Report on Meeting #2:  9/24/14 PRHPP meeting at 351 Van Brunt for community members only.

Info on upcoming meeting for Thurs 10/9 from PRHPP

People for Red Hook Public Parks and City Councilman Carlos Menchaca will be holding a community meeting on Wed. October 8th at 7pm at P.S. 15, The Daly School on Sullivan Street, between Van Brunt and Richards St. in Red Hook. The meeting is the latest in a series of meetings regarding the proposed NYC New York City Department of Parks & Recreation comfort station for Valentino Park.

The Red Hook community has expressed serious concerns about this project: cost, its size location and necessity.

At a cost of $2.5 million dollars, the cost to taxpayers for this project will be over $4000 per square foot. Construction costs for a luxury condominium in Manhattan are $500 per square foot.

The proposed location, Valentino Pier Park, is a quiet community gem, treasured by the neighborhood. The proposed building will cut the park in half and occupy a large portion of open green space.

With a change in city administration, the Red Hook community is counting on a reversal of the top--‐down management style of previous administrations. In order to protect our parks and our neighborhood, we need to bring the people who make decisions together with the people those decisions impact.

So please come to the meeting and bring a friend. We wish to avoid acrimony and work towards a positive relationship between community and administration, so bring your ideas and yourself!

January 2018 update

DOT has approved a sidewalk toilet.   Red Hook, we have been heard! Remember all those meetings about a big, expensive "comfort station" proposed for our charming waterfront park Valentino Park? That concept was defeated, and a small, sidewalk toilet is coming via the DOT. Thanks to everyone for participating in public meetings, on-line discussions with us, and other modes. Community action worked! A special shout out to Anne Griepenburgwho researched the Portland Loo which presented an alternative that appealed to many and may have swung government decision around to that kind of solution.

Toilet Party any one? It has the great acronym of TP.

We hear that there is a spring installation expected, but we are still waiting on confirmation.

Help PortSide continue this kind of community reporting and grow our programs

Support our fundraiser on Tuesday 10/28/14 “Resiliency is our HOOK.” Buy a ticket. Become a sponsor. Join the Host Committee and help sell tickets before the event. It will be a fun event with the rollicking Dixieland jazz of the Red Hook Ramblers and the great food and casual ambiance of Hometown Bar-B-Que restaurant.  We greatly appreciate your support!   As do the people and businesses who benefit from our resiliency work!

View fullsize

Red Hook's Valentino Park - Comfort Station 9-24-14 community meeting

February 27, 2023 update

At the 4/20/22 ballfields re-opening, we were told by a reliable City agency source that there was a lawsuit between Cemusa (the toilet vendor) and NYC; and until that was resolved, no such toilet was going anywhere in NYC. On 2/27/23, we learn from an article in THE CITY that NYC will do a test program with Portland Loo toilets of the kind that Anne Griepenberg of Red Hook proposed in 2014 during the early stages of the Valentino Park toilet saga; but Red Hook will not be getting one of those test program Portland Loos, even though use of Valentino Park surged during the pandemic. No #parkequity for Red Hook.

April 2, 2021 update

Still no toilet despite one being approved in 2018 (see history below). On a regular basis over the years, PortSide asks multiple government about the approved toilet. We ask since we advocate for our local waterfront park spaces, AND because we propose replacing the exterior advertising on the toilet with educational and safety info such as we planned for our BoatBox proposal that fizzled into delays by changing elected officials, Parks commissioners and more. Our last round on the toilet was July 2019, when we forwarded a thread of emails to the DOT, copying supportive staff from Councilman Carlos Menchaca’s office. We got the following response:

From: Frumin, Rachel [mailto:rfrumin@dot.nyc.gov]
Sent: Monday, July 01, 2019 11:31 AM
To: Budelman, Brandon; Carolina Salguero
Cc: Branch, Leroy; Widdison, Renae; Craven, Michelle
Subject: RE: PortSide NewYork request to put info on Valentino Park Street toilet

 Hi all, 

The approved project is delayed due to DEP issues that requested an agreement letter between DOT and Parks on the site plan. That is in process. Also, the existing fence is not a standard one that we can easily procure. Instead, the fence is custom that was commissioned by EDC. To move the fence to accommodate an APT require reconfiguration of the fence work to maintain the flow of the curvy lines in the middle as well as to find a fabricator to build and install the fence. I’m working on this and it is taking some time. 

Rachel 

Rachel Frumin
Director of Concessions and Franchises
NYC Department of Transportation
55 Water Street, 9th Floor
New York, NY 10041
rfrumin@dot.nyc.gov
646-586-5787

We followed up and said that we could introduce them to lots of local metal fabricators who could replicate the fence, or make new. Resounding silence since. We are sure users of the park care more about getting a toilet than having the fence section match - though surely the amazing artisans of Red Hook could match the original fence.

January 2018 update

DOT has approved a sidewalk toilet.   Red Hook, we have been heard! Remember all those meetings about a big, expensive "comfort station" proposed for our charming waterfront park Valentino Park? That concept was defeated, and a small, sidewalk toilet is coming via the DOT. Thanks to everyone for participating in public meetings, on-line discussions with us, and other modes. Community action worked! A special shout out to Anne Griepenburg who researched the Portland Loo which presented an alternative that appealed to many and may have swung government decision around to that kind of solution. Toilet Party any one? It has the great acronym of TP. We hear that there is a spring installation expected, but we are still waiting on confirmation.

September 25, 2014

Our Director Carolina Salguero attended the following meeting last night and wrote the following summary. Notes were taken by others, and we will make them available as we get them

From Parks Department PDF. See link at left for full PDF.

PEOPLE FOR RED HOOK PUBLIC PARKS MEETING
Wed 9/24 7:30pm, 351 Van Brunt St.
Carolina Salguero notes

Here is a PDF with Parks proposal for the comfort station

Overview

A meeting of about 40 people was held over about two hours. The meeting was designed as a community conversation meaning Community Board 6, Parks, elected officials or media were not invited. The Red Hook Star Revue was asked to leave.  However, Peterson Napoleon, a staffer from NYS Assemblyman Felix Ortiz office was there which was only made clear after he spoke up midway through the meeting. He stayed.  Given the request for the media to leave and some of the passions in the room,  we do not mention names of speakers below when describing proposals, questions or statements people made.

There was little interest in the meeting in the idea that one would be able to see the Statue of Liberty from the proposed Comfort Station as shown in this rendering. Saving the lawn was a far greater priority.

A significant portion of the beginning of the meeting was spent venting frustration with Parks, CB6, the City, etc for not being sensitive to Red Hook.  This was intertwined with discussion about how do we discuss this? Who moderates? Passions ran high.

Things settled down and discussion got into various aspects of the Parks planning and outreach process, the status and amount of the whopping $2.4MM for the comfort station, who wants toilets and not, who is represented at the meeting and not, etc.

Towards the end of meeting, there was a lot of discussion about how to capture the points in the meeting, share the info about the meeting and the Parks proposal with the community, whether to have another prep meeting before a meeting with Carlos Menchaca on 10/8 or 10/9; and discussion, pro and con, about the way Red Hook tackles planning issues and when to use anger or not.

(correction added 9/27/14. It was decided to write a press release. Once we get that, we will post it here.)

Toilets yes or no

There was a lot of concern that the Parks plan took up alot of popular lawn space with the building, the access ramps and with the landscaping

Early in the meeting there was a show of hands vote which showed that about half the room, maybe a tad more, was for no toilets at all, the other half for some toilet but not this version in this location.  (correction, first draft here omitted that there was a later vote that came out in  favor of a smaller toilet in a different location so there was some evolution in the course of the meeting.)

Criticism of the toilet form (as opposed to its planning process):

Too big, too expensive, in the wrong place in the park, bad for taking away green space, ugly, not sensitive to 19th Century buildings.

Specific Points for Follow Up:

Questions about Parks Process

View from the ADA ramp or Ferris Street side

What are the stages of this process? Meaning what happens moving forward so RH community can understand how we can or how much we can influence?  “Can CB6 rubber stamp this without RH involvement?” was asked in various ways.

There were many questions about how did this come about? Is there a documented request? What metrics does Parks use to prove need for toilets? (Comparisons were made to Red Hook Ballfields and Central Park that are much larger and have more visitors and would have a lower toilet-tovisitor ratio than Valentino would have if this 4-stall comfort station were built.)

There was some discussion about whether it was locals or visitors who needed toilets. Some people were of the “who cares about the visitors” persuasion, others not.

Can a survey be conducted of the park users to see how many want toilets? This was a popular question.

Finance questions

How locked in is the $1.4MM? Is it locked into that park? That project?

View from the stair side or western side.

$50,000 to use for Valentino Park is paid annually by Hughes Marine (a give back for the Police evidence lot on the Erie Basin breakwater).  We were told this is supposed to be for Valentino Park but has been put in Parks general fund. It was suggested, too much agreement, that we need to get that pulled out of general and applied to Valentino.

There was general, strong agreement that the price tag for this thing was too high.

Planning parameters

Design criteria: what are they for this design (from FEMA, to DEC, zoning, building code, etc) so we can propose informed alternates.

Portapotties: Can seasonal portapotties be used rather than anything permanent?

Property lines:

• There needs to be more clarity about where street end and private property lines are on the Van Dyke Street side.

• Is there anything that can be used in that asphalt area or is that all private property?

• [Note: the DOT, at least under Bloomberg, had a Street End program that supports public uses; and if the street end abuts the park, there might be some way to use DOT space as public open space.]

Love the lawn: The room was strongly for protecting the green and either wanted an absolute “don’t build on the green” or had a strong primary interest in avoiding building on the green. Those two points covered just about everyone there.

There was strong appreciation for “natural” plantings and style of the park.

Heavily used site wiped out by toilets There was a strong sense that Parks did not understand how heavily used the section where they’ve placed the comfort station is.  It was referred to as a children’s play area, BBQ area, area heavily used by “poor people who are not represented here.”

DEC Do they have jurisdiction here or not? One speaker said that DEC has signed off,  and that they did not.

Wish list:

There was considerable discussion covering “If we could spend this money on what we want, or get money for what we want.”  This was held partly in the hope that some of the $2.4MM could be directed elsewhere but also to be able to make Parks better understand the community use and needs relative to this park:

Garbage cans.  More of them and cans for recyclables. One person said could those be bundled with toilets under category “waste” as a way to use the allocated funds for things other than bathrooms.

Hose: Some way to wash down the fish guts etc on end of the pier left by fisherman. A hand-pump was proposed that used salt water to cut down cost (and disruption to park) of installing a line connected to City water mains.

Beach: A way to make the beach more suitable for toddlers/small children. How was not clearly defined; the comment was that it seemed iffy for little ones.

BoatBox  PortSide’s BoatBox plans to turn the container used by the Red Hook Boaters into a better amenity for all park users, visiting kayakers, and the Boaters themselves. The current container came to service the park via work done by PortSide and the Red Hook Boaters; and the agreement was that Boaters had use of the inside and that PortSide’s program space was the outside of the container and that PortSide would take the lead there, consulting with the Boaters during the process.

ALTERNATIVE TOILET SCENARIOS

Bush Terminal Piers Park in Sunset Park toilets were mentioned a few times at tonight's meeting.The architects site for them is here

Est4te Four – there was a proposal to approach them and ask them to build the comfort station solution. There was a variation whereby someone proposed that, when Est4te Fou asked for their variance to build, that the community demand that they build bathrooms as their give back in the way that O'Connell had to provide public access to the waterfront and an esplanade.

Brooklyn Bridge Park toilets by Jane’s Carousel  These photos were requested but for some reason Benjamin Peikes photos posted on the Facebook page for Mary A. Whalen  were not visible on the iPad or a phone.  They are in this two-photo slide show.

That concludes our notes from the meeting

With the goal of informing the discussion, here are some links from comments on our Facebook page about existing small-footprint, lower-cost toilets

The City of Portland, Oregon has had a public toilet design process. Here are several links. Thank you Anne Griepenberg for the info about Portland's work posted to our Mary A. Whalen Facebook page.

City of Portland Parks & Recreation public loo webpage

A blogpost describes the design and reveals that there is a public restroom competition in Canada, a source of more info, though the Portland unit won, they say.  The Portland Loo

Tech specs for Portland Loo

Tips for making Loos that Last - Blogpost
 Article revealing that they cost $60,000 each

More on FEMA Given some discussion about whether the comfort station could be wetproofed rather than raised Here is FEMA ino on wet floodproofing

Other groups discussing public toilet design

PHLUSH is also out of Portland. "PHLUSH believes that toilet availability is a human right and that well-designed sanitation facilities restore health to our cities, our waters and our soils."

The Poop Project

American Restroom Association

NYC's own public toilet design

Red Hook's Valentino Park - Comfort Station yes, no or how?

From the Red Hook Star Revue

See January 2018 update at bottom.

The Parks Department has proposed a large comfort station (bathroom) for Red Hook's small jewel of a waterfront park, the Louis J. Valentino Park  & Pier.

PDF of the Comfort Station plan

We will update this blogpost as we get new information (and time allows). You can also get updates on our Facebook page for Mary A. Whalen

See our prior post about the Fall 2014 repair work Parks planned which caused the first round of consternation.

Below we copy a post we made to Facebook on Tuesday 9/23/14. There were great comments and photos submitted in response and we'll try to get those over here when we can. Not everyone is on Facebook, and a blog post makes a one-stop link that can be shared widely, but the flurry of discussion on this topic, is quite a bit of work to follow!

People for Red Hook Public Parks MEETING Wed 9/24 7:30-8:30p, 351 Van Brunt St. There are rising concerns over New York City Department of Parks & Recreation plan for a comfort station in ‪#‎ValentinoPark‬. Concerns focus on large size of the comfort station which wipes out a whole side of park that is heavily used, and the high cost (4 stalls = $2.4 million according to The Red Hook Star-Revue). The size seems to result, at least in part, from FEMA requirements that the building be raised, leading to the creation of a hillock, and then the required ADA ramp to reach that height also becomes huge. The landscaping plan prevents uses that currently occur in that section of the park.

RECOMMENDATION Let's all approach this by asking questions and negotiating. Red Hook has the tendency to launch into angry accusations in public meetings - at the outset. That is not the best way to tease out alternatives (be they of design or of process). Anger blocks creative thinking (affecting community members trying to improve things), and the people in power are people too and it can be hard for them to be receptive to working with a community that is screaming at them. Anger should be the last resort.

ALTERNATIVES? Could something smaller in size and cost be built-to-flood or "wet-proofed" as Andrea Sansom has proposed? Would incinolets solve the space/cost problem? If it is solar and wind powered by the designs that Baldev Duggal has created for the Brooklyn Navy Yard does it become more resilient or cost less? Someone said if the money is not used it is lost, well then, could money from resulting savings be used for other improvements to the park such as the BoatBox that PortSide designed as a better boathouse and outdoor living room for park users?

The scale of the proposed comfort station does remind us of that Vietnam era slogan "we had to destroy the village in order to save it" by which me mean that an improvement to the park is wiping out a lot of the park.

Carlos Menchaca got involved to clear up some misunderstandings about the Parks repair project which prompted the fences to go up, and we expect that he has already rolled his sleeves up to tackle the Comfort Station Matter.

http://www.star-revue.com/controversial-plan-valentino-pier-comfort-station-george-fiala/ 

January 2018 update

DOT has approved a sidewalk toilet.   Red Hook, we have been heard! Remember all those meetings about a big, expensive "comfort station" proposed for our charming waterfront park Valentino Park? That concept was defeated, and a small, sidewalk toilet is coming via the DOT. Thanks to everyone for participating in public meetings, on-line discussions with us, and other modes. Community action worked! A special shout out to Anne Griepenburg who researched the Portland Loo which presented an alternative that appealed to many and may have swung government decision around to that kind of solution.

Toilet Party any one? It has the great acronym of TP.

We hear that there is a spring installation expected, but we are still waiting on confirmation.

PortSide interview: Don Horton's WWII memories of Red Hook, recollections of a child in the merchant marine

Yesterday, Don Horton visited PortSide NewYork to give us some oral history.  PortSide has been corresponding with Don Horton since October 2013, and the last time Don Horton visited Red Hook was 1950.  

Starting in the 1940s, through the WWII period,  he was working as a child in the merchant marine - a paid worker - so the company knew what was going on.

Yes, such a class of merchant mariner existed, and Don has dedicated his retirement years to getting their service recognized by the federal government, along with the women, elderly and disabled who worked in the wartime merchant marine. All of that being a startling case of "who knew?" 

We wrote about his dogged efforts to reveal this hidden history in a prior blogpost.

Don knows conventional military service, what it is to be a vet.

He served in the Korean War, and he believes that the hundreds of thousands of merchant mariners who served during WWII deserve our nation’s acknowledgement of their service whether they were towing supplies to the European theater or moving cargo along our eastern shore where German U-boats came in close to sink their kind of vessels.

From age 10-18, Don Horton worked on barges, along with his two brothers, his sister, and his mother, all of them joining the father of the family throughout the summer.  

One of their main jobs was hauling coal from Norfolk, Virginia up north. The two boys learned fast how to repair a steam boiler, and they painted the barge. Mama (Sadie Horton) was the cook. The sister married early in the story and got off the boats. Papa seems to have liked drink too much, and brother Billy got off the barges to get away from that and went to work on a tug. The third day on the tug, at age 17, Billy was killed when Germans shelled and sank his boat.

In comparison, Don’s memories of Red Hook are more associated with fun. A stop in New York meant good times. Don recalled a trip to 42nd Street and the treat of a hot dog.  A trip to Coney Island netted a very big hot dog.

Yesterday, Don was in town to see some Senators on behalf of his cause which you can follow on Facebook and to contribute some oral history to PortSide's WaterStories cultural tourism effort.  Here is a preliminary glimpse of some gems we got from Don today.

Carolina Salguero, John Weaver and Peter Rothenberg spent several hours interviewing Don and recording video and sound files.  Don's tack-sharp memory and vivid story telling made for a great afternoon.

We started out talking over lunch in the galley of our Mary A. Whalen with Don and his darling wife Norita.

Ralston's WWII grocery, now the site of hip Baked

After lunch, we visited the site of Ralston's, a grocery store during WWII Red Hook: fruit under an awning out front, narrow aisles and a place where they preferred you give them a list of what you wanted instead of getting it from the shelf yourself, little shopping carts with wooden wheels.  

Don said boats liked to provision at Ralston’s and explained the allure: the captain's were given free liquor in the back in a private bar which ensured they would frequent the joint and then spend grub money in the store.

Ralston’s address was 294 Van Brunt Street, now BAKED.

Don said that the soda Spur was their favorite and that he and his siblings fought over the precious bottles on the barge trip to the next port, the ice blocks from Ralston's being their only refrigeration until they got there.

Here is a 1943 ad for Spur, "a cola with a walnut taste," he remembered with a smile.

Next, we took Don Horton past two once-twin tenements, one of which is at 415 Van Brunt, to see if those were the kind of buildings that matched his "never would happen now" WWII memories of a Van Brunt Street where women on hands and knees scrubbed little porches with buckets of water, a scrub brush and a big bar of Octagon soap.

YES, those were the kinds of buildings he remembered!

Don then explained that "doing laundry" on the barge was scrubbing dungarees on the wide rail of the barge and leaving them to dry there.

Sunny's Bar

From there, over to Sunny's Bar where we were thrilled to find Sunny himself lounging in bathrobe with friends at the end of lunch.

At age 80, Sunny is but 2 years younger than Don, and they shared many memories including swimming in the filthy water of the time which both cited as having lots of turds and Coney Island whitefish as Sunny called them, or rubbers in Don’s version.

Sunny cheekily got an old load off his conscience when he confessed that he'd "borrowed' someone's rowboat at one point, and on top of that lied to his Papa saying that he had not taken it, and apologized to Don who said they'd come back from Ralston's Grocery at times to find their boat gone.

Sunny Balzano, Carolina Salguero of PortSide NewYork and Don Horton

The rowboats always came back, Don said, but delays were a big concern; because if they missed the tide, the current would be too strong to row against it in their little boat loaded with groceries.

Sunny shared memories of how, when he heard wartime air raid siren drills and knew that the war was being fought "overseas," thought that Staten Island (which was overseas for a little Red Hook boy) was under attack.

Don Horton gave us several copies of this book.

Here is what Don told us about shelling during the interview in the galley:  When he first started on the barges and saw flashes of light when they were offshore and asked Papa what they were, Papa fibbed and didn’t say it was German’s shelling the American merchant marine, he said it was lighting.

Later on, “I knew what those lights were,” said Don, “and something I don’t often say, I wet myself with fear.” The barges were old boats, unarmored with no weapons, three miles behind the tug, he clarified.

"Barge" of the sort Don Horton and his family work, dismasted wood schooner hulls.

We need to clarify what "barges" means here. These were the old, creaky hulls of wooden schooners,  dismasted to turn them into barges.

Don said the vessels' intended life span was some 25 years and these were 50-60 years old and so frail that after being beat up in a storm, the caulk might be battered out. Then, they'd have to go to a shipyard for repairs.

The Red Hook Flats & Erie Basin

We walked out to the end of the Beard Street Pier so Don Horton could see the Red Hook flats and the entrance to Erie Basin. This prompted more memories.

Don had emailed us some great memories of the Red Hook flats last year which paint a picture of a harbor jammed with ships, tugs, barges, row boats and the "bum boat" or "speculator" a sort of scrap dealer and rag picker afloat who went from vessel to vessel buying what he could.

Yesterday, Don described how he and his brother scavenged whatever they could, lengths of tired rope, bits of metal they found or “liberated” from cargo on the occasions they were hauling metal.

"There's the cut," Don Horton said as soon as he saw the entrance to Erie Basin.

Standing on the end of Greg O’Connell’s Beard Street Pier enabled Don to pin point geography in a way that looking at the map while seated in our galley had not, and he explained that the dinghy dock location was around the Erie Basin side of that pier.  During WWII, tugboats were jammed into the place where the New York Water Taxi homeport dock is today.

PortSide recently acquired this page from an old magazine showing a view of the Erie Basin during the era described in this interview.

Don said there were often up to 50 barges at anchor "on the Red Hook flats" as he called them, and that Erie Basin was so chock full of ships and barges that his family had to find channels underneath the bow and stern rakes of the barges to row their way through the fleet.

During the interview in the Mary A Whalen galley, Don described how his father bought a lot of whiskey when he was ashore, and his mother would dump it over the side once they got back to the barge on the Red Hook flats, to the point that she said the flats must be full of whiskey bottles. Hello, bottle collecting divers!

We were all surprised to learn that Don's mother did not know how to swim and was afraid of the water but still spent every summer working the coastwise barges with her husband and children during the war.

The whole endeavor required a lot of courage by everyone in the family, and PortSide NewYork is helping to get this aspect of history, that's national history and local history, better known. 

[This and many other stories are also told in redhookwaterstories.org PortSide NewYork's  e-museum and neighborhood website. ]

Report on Red Hook meeting about Valentino Park hosted by Carlos Menchaca with the Parks Department

Valentino Park, Red Hook, Brooklyn. The little park with the big view. 

Red Hook, Brooklyn has a small jewel with a big view in the Louis J. Valentino Park and Pier.  The place inspired an August uproar due to unannounced renovation project by the Parks Department.

To set the scene, this park is heavily used by old-timers and newbies, dog walkers, fishermen, sunbathers, kids, seniors, an occasional croquet game, the outdoor movie series Red Hook Flicks and the Red Hook Boaters who offer free kayaking and conduct beach clean ups. 

The use of the park has ramped up due to a great food and activity scene which sprang up post hurricane Sandy on the Van Dyke Street end on the parks southeast side with the Steve's Key Lime Pie and Hometown BBQ setting up outdoor eating areas. Brooklyn Motor Works is running a cool motorcycle biz next door, and there is a forge across the street at She-Weld and Pier 44 Antiques auction house (they also sell retail) next to that. In short, a Red Hook scene.

2005 renovation of Valentino Park

So.... not surprisingly, when fences went up around Valentino Park recently without any prior notice from the Parks department, there was community concern - concerns heightened by the fact that Red Hook's Coffey Park was shut down for renovations without notice this year, and Valentino Park underwent a similar surprise lockdown for renovations in 2005. 

Last night, Councilman Carlos Menchaca convened and ran a great meeting with the Parks Department and the community, and THE COMMUNITY WAS HEARD

Hats off to Carlos Menchaca for organizing this meeting and running it so well. Thank you, Brooklyn Parks Commissioner Jeffrey for coming out, for apologizing for lack of notice to the community about the project, for committing to do better and change the process, and for being willing to take input on some design issues regarding proposed repair near a bulkhead.

The community and CM Carlos Menchaca conveyed that there needs to be more communication from Parks in the future and more opportunity for community input. People expressed concerns about process and design. Great comments by Victoria Hagman, Dan Daniel Wiley, Lillie Marshall, Danella Johnson, Tony Schloss, and many others.

In sum, the Parks work plan is the following

• This is, in Parks' terms, a small $118,000 project that should be completed within a month.
• Most of the park will stay open during the work.
• Access to the pier and the beach will remain open during the work.
• Work needs to finish well before winter weather because asphalt plants close when temperatures drop below 45 degrees.

Red Hook Boaters in action!

The work is occurring because Parks wanted to fix the broken water fountain over near Coffey Street and in order to make that project large enough for a capital project, they bundled that work with some other repairs, - all of this happening because they have some discretionary money in the budget.

Those "other repairs" are fixing the walkways parallel to the water (NOT the central walkway to the pier) through the park in the following ways: The smaller walks near the water are "aggregate" (gravel in plain English) bounded by low steel rails; the problem with this design is that the aggregate has "migrated" (or spread in plain English) far from the walkways. This means that the walkways are now lower than the steel rails, and those rails are now a tripping hazard.

Another walkway issue is the 8-9" step from walkway up to the pier on the SE (or Steve's Key Lime Pie) side of the pier walkway, and that's tough on seniors and the disabled and a trip-n-fall hazard to all us distracted folks.

Short term band aid vs long term resiliency

Lastly, and this is were the big focus and passion of the discussion about the renovation design centered, was how and why Parks proposed to deal with a zone on that same SE side of the pier where salt water comes over the bulkhead, puddles, and then drains back out to sea - in the process, killing vegetation and taking the soil with it, eg leading to a situation that at some point will create sinkholes and a collapsed bulkhead.

The difference of opinion here was that Parks wanted to do a quick repair to prevent a big future job and the hazard of sinkholes by raising the land so that it was level with the bulkhead and putting an asphalt cap (with sand and cement below) over PART of the area there so that water would drain from the asphalt back to sea.

Parks could have brought a better rendering showing what would become asphalt and what would be planting in this new domed better-drained hump of park - there was a lot of confusion about what was staying green and not.

At the meeting last night, many community members asked the Parks department for more green and less asphalt. There is heavy use of the small green space in Valentino Park.

Many community members did not want more asphalt in the park. Victoria Hagman suggested that Parks seek input on more green and resilient design practices, citing Gita Nandan as one possible contributor.  Dan Wiley from Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez office mentioned that the $200MM integrated flood protection plan coming to Red Hook might replace or better what Parks is proposing. (In the after-meeting chatter, some questioned whether the $200MM plan would be built long after that spot has a major sinkhole.)

Parks pointed out that they don't have budget now to re-design or use more costly materials.

Landscape architects vs BLUEspace architects

As waterfront advocates, we want to interject, supporting what Commissioner Jeffrey admitted last night,  that this salt-spray, sinkhole-prone section of the park was NOT well designed from the outset. (PS, its surface treatment of plantings etc was installed during the 2005 renovation.)

Somewhere in our files is a photo of salt spray heavily dousing newly planted "beach roses" which soon died in that spot.

In our opinion, it was typical of how NYC waterfront park design is dominated by landscape architects and not water people. Where are the BLUEspace architects? Piers designed for boats?

PortSide offering line throwing activity at Red Hook Fest in Valentino Park 2011

Breaking down the silos

PortSide Director Carolina Salguero picked up on Dan Wiley's comment about NY Rising resiliency work. She was on the NY Rising committee, and PortSide has done a lot of recovery and resiliency planning work since Hurricane Sandy.  Salguero asked if the collapsed water line under Coffey Street to the drinking fountain was related to the frequent HUGE puddle that sits on the west end of Coffey Street after a rain.

Storm drain problems were a big focus of the NY Rising effort. Parks could not answer that on the spot, and said they would ask their engineer for info.

At PortSide, we always try and break down silos and develop cross talk, so the hope with this question is that a Parks project could lead to info that would inform a DEP project the Red Hook NY Rising committee hopes to see. Sounds simple, but NYC agency cross-talk and info-share is harder than one would expect.

Next steps

As design-by-community could not solve the "how to cap and drain the proposed dome," it was agreed that the community would do some homework and get ideas to Parks.

Everyone needs to bear in mind that there is not a lot of budget here, so AFFORDABLE concepts need to be submitted. As to whether or how design changes could be made due to city process on how to bid and let a job, over to Carlos and Parks for answer.

Est4te Four, who is developing all the property across Coffey Street from Valentino, will want the Coffey Street Lake resolved, so Red Hook may see a solution due to private development.

NEXT ISSUE for Valentino Park" Parks proposal to install a "comfort station" eg bathrooms over by the Coffey Street side near Ferris. Come to a Brooklyn Community Board 6 meeting on Wed 9/17 6:30pm at the Miccio Center for discussion of that (and Coffey Park) as well as the Columbus Day weekend concert on Pier 9 in the Red Hook Container Term

FEMA needs input to Region 2 Coastal website - due 8-16-14

ALERT! Get info to FEMA by Wed 8/6/14.

FEMA realized that they need to revise the region2.coastal website and are looking for input and feedback. Send info directly to Heidi Carlin below.

From: coat-bounces@marine.rutgers.edu On Behalf Of Carlin, Heidi
Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2014 2:51 PM
To: coat@marine.rutgers.edu
Cc: Song Thomas
Subject: [Coat] We need your input on the Region 2 Coastal website by August 6, 2014

Dear COAT Members,

You are a valued member of a large team of professionals along the New Jersey and New York coast interested in promoting flood risk communication. We would really appreciate you taking a few minutes to review the www.region2coastal.com website, then fill out the attached questionnaire, and send back to Heidi.carlin@urs.com by Wednesday, August 6, 2014.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Heidi M. Carlin, CFM
Senior Strategic Communications Specialist
URS Corporation
Office/Mobile: 410-725-7414
Email: Heidi.Carlin@urs.com

*** here is the questionnaire ***

This questionnaire is intended for local community officials and other key stakeholders to determine usability of the www.region2coastal.com website. Your feedback is greatly appreciated!

1. What is your primary function? (Please circle)
a. Floodplain Manager
b. Building Official
c. Elected Official
d. Emergency Manager
e. Academic
f. Non-Profit Organization
g. Private Sector
h. Federal/State Government
i. Other, please describe: ____________________

For the following questions, please write your answer in the space provided. Use the back of this sheet if
you need more space and indicate which question you are writing about.

2. Which parts of the website are most useful to you?




3. What do you need the most from this website in terms of content now or in the future?




4. What would you like the website to do for you? How can the website assist with your job needs?




5. Is there information you need that you cannot find, or have difficulty finding, related to the coastal flood study, the NFIP, or related topics? If so, please list the specific topics.




6. What do you think the public needs the most from this website?




7. What do you think about the overall look and feel of the website? Do you have any suggestions for improving overall usability?

PortSide NewYork "Heavy Metal" Fundraising Sale! New Items Added!

“Funds raised help PortSide continue our mission to bring life to the BLUEspace of NYC’s WATERfront and our hurricane Sandy recovery. ”

Sunday 7/27/14, 11am to 4pm

3 tractor trailers of marine hardware for sale! Cash (or credit card) on the bollard -- this is not an auction!

Great deco items for home, loft, restaurant.  Get your souvenir red hooks here! 4-foot tall turnbuckles! Shackles of all sizes up to multi-ton lift capacity!  Blocks (pulleys), weld-on cleats, pad eyes, wire clips, 4 large bollards. Tension testing machine.  Vintage scale and wire rope measuring device. Barrels of chain.  1,400 Unislings for bagged cargo, 90 Portabulk bags.    Jet Portable folding hydraulic 2-ton hoist.  (3) jet 1-ton trolley, (1) each of Jet 1/2-ton hoist w/20 ft, Jet 2-ton pallet puller, Jet 2-ton trolley, and more! EVERYTHING MUST GO!

Riggers, this is real working hardware of industrial scale. 

New items added!

WWII Armory gun rack
Viking 10-person liferaft (distinctive kiddy pool!)
Pilots ladder
Antique Potbelly stove
Large wood crate
2-wheel welder’s trolley
vintage hand truck for moving barrels
modern Wheel barrow
Elliptical hatch frame with bolts (industrial photo frame)
Storage:

• HUGE steel shelves
• steel crane basket
• Large wood bin-shelf system painted grey

***Inventory in Word or Excel (approximate. minus a few things we culled for our ship MARY A. WHALEN) does not include the New Items above***

Sale Location: Pier 11 loading dock, south end, Atlantic Basin, Red Hook, Brooklyn

Vehicles enter at Bowne & Imlay (follow signs for Brooklyn Cruise Terminal entrance). Pedestrians and bikes can also enter from the south at a pedestrian gate at the corner of Pioneer & Conover Streets.

Funds raised help PortSide continue our mission to bring life to the BLUEspace of NYC's WATERfront and our hurricane Sandy recovery.  As of last count, our Sandy damages run about $300,000.  We protected the MARY A. WHALEN, with our offices aboard, from the storm; but Sandy got to everything off the ship on the pier. Many historic items were damaged. Some things floated away forever.  We suffer strong indirect Sandy effects. Sandy stalled the urgent search for a home we declared in 2012, since all waterfront sites with which we were negotiating were damaged and dropped negotiations for a while or for good; and we have been unable to earn money with the ship where is it now for about three years.

For scale, in photos below, yellow tape measure is extended to 12"

New Items Added!

Trailer #3

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

Trailer #2

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

Trailer #1

Hooks and links

Sparkling renovation of tanker Mary A. Whalen galley

The transformation of the galley will knock your socks off! Decades of paint were removed from steel, bronze and Monel surfaces.  The bulkhead was painted one of its early colors, a light, bright green typical in the 1930's when the ship was launched.

What made this project so challenging (beyond the scope of work) is that we are limited, since February 2012, to just 5 visitors at a time who do not have Homeland Security TWIC cards, and 5 such visitors can only be escorted in and out by our Director Carolina Salguero who has to stay aboard (eg,  not leave for meetings) while they are aboard.

These rules have so impeded access to the ship that they have largely stopped volunteer shipwork (and programs) on the tanker.   What inspired us to take on this big project is that Erika Stetson donated her entire month of December to us (as training for her entry to SUNY Maritime Academy) which broke the back on this work (and fortunately not on her!).

Related Posts

Start of renovation

Renovation midway

Paint removal and painting volunteers included Carol Salguero (Carolina's mother), Carla and Andrea Oviedo (visiting from Spain), Max Powell (driving 3 hours each way from Waterford for a few weekends), and our advisor Paul Amico.  As this project went along, we also got assistance from The Red Hook Volunteers, FEMA Americorps members, and various individuals.  Peter Guaracci, an actor and teacher, is our latest regular volunteer.

Putting Humpty Dumpty Back Together Again

Putting the space back together was a project unto itself!  Shipcat Chiclet was most engaged during the unpacking of the boxes.  She did not like the noise of the paint chipping portion of this project. Needleguns are not for her!

Metal polishing work

We all delight in the gleam!

The Porthole Challenge

Dear Workboat crew,

Never paint the polished bronze!  SO many layers of paint are on Mary Whalen's portholes and Monel porthole surrounds. 

At first, we hoped to take the portholes entirely out, but getting them separated from the ship's steel proved too much. We are sending the swing plates, nuts, hinge pins and deadlights out for dip and strip polishing. The dogs will be another tedious matter.

Getting the hinge pins separated from the cast iron deadlights, which have corroded and swollen around the pins, has been a project requiring Zen patience, regular application of PB Blaster lubricant, heat, tapping, and prayer.

You can still help! Here is what we still need:

Tile restoration: Replace missing tile. Clean and restore existing tile. The white tiles are very discolored.

Repair of the wood paneled fridge and freezer: glue down some veneer bubbles, some re-varnishing. Change of freon, gaskets and compressors from DC to AC motors (or installation of a rectifier)

7 vintage cabinet latches. We can provide dimensions and details.

Furniture restoration and upholstery work: Restoration of the table stools.  They should have backs. Some of the seats are not original. All should be reupholstered. New back and side cushion for the banquette, and re-upholstery of the banquette seat cushion to match.

Wood refinishing. Some sanding and varnishing of wood shelves and trim and parts of the fridge.

Two vintage fans. One was mounted on a wooden shelf, the other a "wall-mounted" model was on a bulkhead under the skylight. (We can provide dimensions).

Donations as ever!

Thanks!

From 1934 to our 2013 White House award: PortSide board member John Weaver's trips to DC

A year ago today, some of the PortSide NewYork crew and colleagues traveled to Washington, DC to receive a White House "Champions of Change" award for our Sandy Recovery work in Red Hook, Brooklyn. 

Much is made of youth culture these days, but at PortSide we have developed a deep appreciation for senior culture thanks to the wisdom and long perspective offered to us by people such as John Weaver, one of our board members. John's connection to PortSide is through the tanker MARY A. WHALEN. John's father in law Alf Dyrland was captain of the MARY from her rechristening in 1962 to 1978. 

John has had many careers in his life. On his first acting gig after graduating from Columbia he shared the stage with Katherine Hepburn.  He was in Greenwich Village when it was The Village and met Ed Koch when he was just a real estate lawyer.  John went to Woodstock, drove Diane Arbus to her photo shoots because she didn’t have a car, and traveled the country as actor and stage manager.  John’s work as a director in live TV was notable for his creative approach to the use of multiple cameras, and he was the Producer/Director of the first season of "Like It Is" a public affairs show focusing on issues relevant to the African-American community that ran from 1968 to 2011 until its host died. Here is what he wrote about PortSide's trip to DC in 2013:

It’s April 23rd, 2013 and Carolina Salguero, Peter Rothenberg and I have just arrived in Washington DC after four hours on the BOLT Bus. Union Station is Grand Central large but not Grand Central dirty. We all remark on how clean it looks feels and smells.

We wend our way to the street and the line for a taxi. No pushing, shoving, bumping. It’s all so very civilized and pleasant. As we exit out into the fresh air Carolina asks me:

“When was the last time you were in Washington, John?”

I replied: “I believe it was maybe 1934. My parents brought us down here for the traditional Easter Egg rolling on the White House lawn”

This did get a laugh along with a few strangers turning their heads to see the relic who had just said that. Then it was our turn to climb into a cab and head for our lodgings. I recalled that I actually had been to Washington more recently, on two separate trips. One was on the occasion of Dr. Martin Luther King’s address, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. “I have a dream” resonates for me today as if I am hearing it again, for the first time. I traveled that day on a bus with a delegation from Actors’ Equity Association to support the Civil Rights movement that Dr. King was leading. I sat on the steps a few feet behind and to the left of Dr. King.

Some years later, 1968, I was once again on a bus. This time it was with a group from the 15th St Meeting of the Friends, Quakers, from Manhattan. We had traveled to Washington to protest the Vietnam War. Highlights of that trip: sleeping on the floor of the Smithsonian, We had left New York at 6am and all of us found someplace, indoors, to take a nap. Next getting to experience tear gas on an open field…Mr. Nixon did not want us to feel that he welcomed our presence. And last, when we returned to the location where our bus was meant to be, there was no bus. Earlier arrivals from our group told us that, when they got there, the driver told them he wasn’t going to drive any “Commies” back to New York and he drove off. We found our way to Union Station in tears, literally, and got a train home.

This time around, Union Station welcomed me and I was here, In Washington DC, as the most very proud member of the PortSide delegation on the occasion of PortSide being honored as a Champion of Change for the work done on behalf Hurricane Sandy relief.

We were invited to the White House where our President resides as one step, one giant step forward toward the realization of Dr. King’s dream for us all.