September 19, 2009

Construction Update–Phase I continues (obviously)

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

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September 1, 2009

FFLA Co-sponsors Council Candidate Forum Sept 10th

Haven’t made up your mind yet on who you support for City Council of our district?   On September 10, just five days prior to the City Primary, we are co-sponsoring a candidate forum in conjunction with the Boerum Hill Association, Brooklyn Heights Association, DUMBO Neighborhood Alliance and the Historic District Council.

Participating candidates will be: Ken Baer, Doug Biviano, Ken Diamondstone, Steve Levin, Joanne Simon, and Evan Thies. (Isaac Abraham will be not be attending due to a prior commitment).  Find out what each will do to represent us on: education/schooling, development, preservation, the Park,  the City deficit, traffic and quality of life issues that matter in this district.

WHEN: THURSDAY, SEPT 10th  7pm–9pm

WHERE:  ST FRANCIS COLLEGE FOUNDERS HALL

180 REMSEN STREET

MODERATOR:  Grace Rahl, NY1

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June 23, 2009

Construction Projects in Fulton Ferry set to commence

Multiple construction projects are scheduled to begin in two weeks in the Fulton Ferry neighborhood in Brooklyn. The first two projects, the reconstruction of water and sewer mains and the construction of Brooklyn Bridge Park Plaza, will begin on July 7th. The repainting of the Brooklyn Bridge, along with the rehabilitation of  approaches and ramps, will not start until the end of the year.

The water and sewer project will be done in two phases that total two years in length. Phase 1, which affects Fulton Ferry the most, includes Water Street between Furman and Dock Streets, and Old Fulton Street between Front and Furman Streets. This phase will last 6-8 months. Phase 2 involves Water Street between Dock and Adams, and Washington Street between Plymouth and York Stteets.

The Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation is piggybacking their construction of Bridge Plaza with the Department of Design and Construction water/sewer project. In order to create a more pedestrian-friendly flow from the southern part of Brooklyn Bridge Park to the interbridge area, the wide part of Water Street, roughly between Old Fulton Street and the Boiler House (chimney), will be narrowed by 50 percent.  The remaining street area will be redone with cobblestones and granite slab pavement crosswalks. In addition, the cul-de-sac will have new pigmented sidewalk installed.

During Phase 1, the Water Street section will be closed to vehicular traffic. The B25 bus will be rerouted. The work will generally be done between 7AM and 6PM, but may end sooner, and will end by 3PM along Old Fulton. There may be water service interruptions, with notification in advance, but no sooner than the afternoon the day before. Water may be turned off anywhere from one hour to up to 8-10 hour periods but will be fully restored at the end of the construction day. Noise will be minimized by the use of sound blankets and other means of attenuating the sound of powersaws, jackhammers, trucks, etc.  Dust will be controlled by water sprayed on site.

Additional information is available in the following 2 pdfs from the DDC:

Page 1

Page 1

Page 2

Page 2

The Fulton Ferry Landing Association would like to schedule a public meeting here next week with a representative of the DDC available to answer questions, if there is enough interest. Please send an email to fultonferry@gmail.com if you think you might attend such a meeting.

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May 29, 2009

Dock Street Press Conference in DUMBO tomorrow

New York City Councilman Eric Gioia from Queens, who grilled the VP/Counsel from the School Construction Authority (SCA) at the Council public hearing last week (see our previous story), has announced that he is coming to DUMBO Saturday May 30th (tomorrow) to give a press conference regarding the questionable behavior and dealings between the Department of Education/SCA and the developer of the Dock Street project (Two Trees Management). Councilman David Yassky will also be in attendance, as will Kristian Roebling, great, great-grandson of Washington and Emily Roebling, builders of the iconic Bridge.

If you are a parent interested in your children attending public middle school in the neighborhood, we urge you to attend to hear more about this issue. If you oppose the over-sized Dock Street project, showing up to listen will drive the point home to City Council that we do not support backroom deals, especially when a national icon is at stake. The Land Use committee votes June 2nd, so your attendance could make a difference.

Saturday, May 30th, 2009
11:30 am,  Brooklyn Bridge Park at Main and Plymouth Streets.  Please come!

For an additional background story about the FOIL request that revealed the improprieties, please see this post at Dumbonyc.

For more information on the campaign donations to Melinda Katz and Christine Quinn by Two Trees and their associates, see this NY Times article from May 24th.

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May 28, 2009

Dock Street Council Hearing update

In case there are readers who have been away over the holiday and missed the news, we’ll catch you up here. The City Council hearing in front of the Zoning and Franchises sub-committee took place on May 21st, and there were plenty of early fireworks.

Vice President and Counsel of the School Construction Authority Ross Holden was grilled by several councilpersons about the contents of the internal emails that were revealed by a FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) request. Councilman Eric Gioia of Queens was particularly incensed by this passage between SCA Executive Director Lorraine Grillo and Kendrick Ou, Director, Real Estate Services: “Now I know that if we don’t do the Walentas project that we don’t really want to do anything else over there but I think we have to follow up on this just so we can say that the Walentas project is such a good deal.” Holden was also unable to answer questions about the cost of the proposed school, and how much the city would save by siting the school as part of this development project. At one point, Jed Walentas started to stand up to answer the question, and Two Trees attorney Ken Fisher practically shoved him back in his seat.

Ken Burns was in attendance, but due to the length of time spent with the preliminary speakers, was unable to stay long enough to read his testimony. A portion was read for him later on in the afternoon. You can view his interview on Morning Joe on MSNBC here. He talks about Dock Street and the Bridge starting around the 4:25 mark.

There is more coverage at the Brooklyn Paper, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the Brooklyn Heights Blog, and Dumbonyc. Additionally, Councilman Gioia will be hosting a press conference on Saturday May 30th, 11:30 AM, at Brooklyn Bridge Park  (Main Street and Plymouth).  Kristian Roebling, the great, great-grandson of Brooklyn Bridge builders Washington and Emily Roebling, will also be there. More on this in a later post.

The Land Use Committee is expected to vote on the project next week, followed by the full Council on June 10th.

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May 28, 2009

Brooklyn Flea update

FFLA representatives met with the owners of the Brooklyn Flea recently, and we discussed potential quality-of-life issues to ensure that Fulton Ferry residents will only have a positive experience with the new Sunday enterprise under the Brooklyn Bridge. Among the topics discussed were garbage cleanup, air and noise pollution, and traffic.

The Flea will employ 4 members from the Doe Fund to sweep the blacktop area and the immediate perimeter, so we should not see the kind of mess that sometimes occurred last summer after Tobacco Warehouse events. They do not anticipate any food trucks as part of the plan, so we should be clear of noise and air polluting generators. However, NYC licensed vendors may try to stake a claim to sidewalk space, which we will have to look out for. There are rules as to the distance from a residential entry and the width of the sidewalk. Many of you will remember the fruit shake lady who set up in front of the Eagle last year with a polluting generator, until she was ultimately convinced to leave. Ditto for the hotdog guy at the corner of Furman and Old Fulton. Montague Street is a vendor-free zone, and we need to have this historic area declared such as well.

Vendors will start to unload their wares for set-up at 8AM, so we asked that they try to do that task away from the residential part of Water Street. We also requested that the vendors approach the market via Dock Street or Water Street westbound, rather than making the turn from Old Fulton at Pete’s and facing the prospect of a forced U-turn. This should aid in the prevention of a bottleneck there.

In light of the above points, we anticipate good relations between this business and the residential neighbors. And rumor has it that there may be Lobster rolls for sale inside the Flea, direct from Maine. You can’t beat that on a summer’s day!

In a related story, the planned ice skating rink for this site is still years away, because the DOT will be using the part of the land closest to the water as a staging and storage area for the upcoming Bridge repainting project.

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May 19, 2009

FFLA neighborhood meeting – take the poll

It has been awhile since the last FFLA full membership meeting. Partly this is due to lack of a proper venue in the area, one that would not charge too much for their space (free would be even better!) Another reason is the disappointing turnout we had at our meetings in recent years. However, there are many local issues to discuss, as evidenced by the posts on this blog, and many of you are new to the neighborhood and may want to have your opinions heard.

So, here is a poll so you can let us know whether we should schedule regular meetings. If you have any ideas for a venue, please forward them too.

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