Just when you thought Old Fulton was back to normal, the digging began again. Here’s the scoop on what’s going on. The City is in the process of installing new water mains, valves and hydrants. These will run on Water from Old Fulton to Main St. In addition, five new catch basins to prevent street flooding are being installed on various parts of Old Fulton (for those of you who wondered about those large concrete blocks sitting on various parts of the street, those are the basins).
FFLA and our residents have been interacting frequently with DDC representatives, and have had to fight to ensure that the City install vibration monitors in our oldest and most fragile buildings. We want to acknowledge the assistance of Councilman Yassky’s office in this endeavor.
Yet to come in our neighborhood is the installation of a 36″trunk water main, and a 18″ sanitary sewer. Translation: more digging, road repair, dust and noise. Following that work,in the spring, the Department of Design and Construction will install a new, pigmented sidewalk, granite pavement crosswalks, and curbs on behalf of Brooklyn Bridge Park. That’s when further construction on the Park, conducted by Skanska on behalf of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corp, takes over. And we haven’t touched on the third phase, the work on the Brooklyn Bridge. More to follow.
NOTE: If you have comments, concerns, questions, are upset about the new fire hydrant blocking the limited residential parking in our neighborhood, or want to know more about the next phase, please come to the public meeting. Details below.
WHAT: PUBLIC MEETING, TRI-CONSTRUCTION PROJECT
WHEN: TUESDAY, SEPT 22ND. 630 PM
WHERE: BOROUGH HALL, COURTROOM 209 JORALEMON STREET
My understanding is that the bridge sandblasting work will use the same or similar “negative air pressure” machines as were recently used at the BQE overpass at Washington & York. While the machines ensure that there’s little or no sand or paint dust, they are also possibly the loudest pieces of equipment I’ve ever heard in the city. Much louder than a helicopter overhead. I haven’t seen any information about noise abatement for the BB work over residential neighborhoods like FF.
The Battery Park City Broadsheet has had some information on this project but nothing immediately referenceable.
While there was some discussion of noise mufflers at the first public meeting, at that stage Bridge work was more than six months away and
a contractor had not even been chosen. It is likely, however, that there will be further details revealed at the upcoming meeting, as the target date to begin was December. If you want to contact the City directly with your concerns, the individual responsible for overseeing the rehabilitation of the Brooklyn Bridge approaches and ramps is Hasan Ahmed, P.E. Director, East River Bridges, and Joannene Kidder is the Community Affairs liaison.