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 CONTENTS: December 20, 2011 | Bronx, Meet Your Waterfront Plan!
MIT students re-imagine the Bronx side of the Harlem River
Historic Hoboken Ferry Slips Restored and Reopened
NJ Transit and Port Authority present the rehabilitated Hoboken Terminal
Staten Island to Get a New Waterfront Park
City Council member Debi Rose works with the NYC DOT and other groups
Getting Shipshape at South Street Seaport Museum
As volunteers work on the ships, staff plans the museum's reopening
Happy Holidays from the MWA and the SSSM!
Great stocking stuffer: South Street Seaport Museum membership
Meet Some MWA Partners!
Newslinks
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| BRONX, MEET YOUR WATERFRONT PLAN! | | New Ideas for the Bronx Shoreline from MIT Students
Look at a map of the eight-mile Harlem River, and you'll see long stretches of green-colored public access on the Manhattan side, showing that groups like the Harlem River Park Task Force, the New York Restoration Project, New York Rowing and the NYC Economic Development Corporation are devoting time and resources to devising new ways for the public to get to and on the water. But the Bronx side of the Harlem River is far less accessible -- mostly gray on a map; mostly barricaded in person.
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A new look from MIT students for the Pier 5 area on the Harlem River's Bronx side.
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Earlier this year, a dozen graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Department of Urban Studies and Planning spent several months on a project to re-imagine the Bronx side of the Harlem River. The result, titled "Bronx, Meet Your Waterfront Plan," is a series of practical proposals with a multitude of maps, photographs and illustrations that would accomplish for the Bronx the kind of waterfront revitalization that has been under way for several years in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. The project was one of 10 winners (out of 150 submissions) of the NYC Institute for Urban Design competition for new ideas for the City's public realm.
The MIT team and their professor, Eran Ben-Joseph, worked
"Since many of our urban planning students come from NYC (and we have many of or graduates working in the city) we thought it would be a great opportunity to be engage with pertinent issues the city is dealing with as well as to help the local community," Prof. Ben-Joseph told WaterWire.
MIT graduate students on a site visit at the High Bridge. Photo by Albert Ching
Mr. Marella put the MIT team in touch with the office of the Bronx Borough President, the Bronx Council on Environmental Quality and other agencies and civic groups. Public design charrettes were held. The riverfront was explored. The students went back to Cambridge, MA to brainstorm.
The challenge is how to transform long stretches of industrially contaminated land into a people-oriented waterfront integrated with its bordering neighborhoods. Bronx community activists have pursued such revitalization for years. In February of 2011, for example, Friends of Brook Park brought a map to the Community Board with waterfront access points proposed along the length of the Bronx side of the Harlem River. The MIT plan may give new impetus to these efforts by offering ideas that focus on and connect four distinct riverside sites; from north to south, High Bridge (in the High Bridge picture below, the Bronx is on the right), Macombs Dam, Pier 5 and Lincoln Avenue. A sampling of ideas follows, with the students' map with colored tabs.
- At Macombs Dam (red tab on map), where a big parking lot next to Yankee Stadium is under-used, the students propose a food truck court and plentiful waterside seating.
 At and around Pier 5's 18 acres (lime green tab), which are adjacent to Mill Pond Park, the young planners propose natural plantings, with space for cultural programming. - The transformation proposed for the Lincoln Avenue area (orange tab), which has direct access to the water, focuses on stormwater management with new swales and rain garden planters.
 - At the High Bridge (top teal tab) -- NYC's oldest bridge, which will reopen in 2013 to pedestrians and bicyclists -- the student planners acknowledged a well-received plan for the High Bridge Cove area on the Bronx side by Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architects (rendering above) and then came up with more ideas. Among them: new bridge entrances that would strengthen connections with the neighborhood and simultaneously help control erosion and stormwater runoff. How? Prune vegetation around the stairs to the bridge and plant rain gardens.
 This is the current state of the High Bridge.
NYC planners were impressed with the students' work. "The breath of innovation about how we looked at this river and our waterfront that these students brought was so refreshing," said Wilhelm Ronda, director of planning and development for Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. "Up to now we've been struggling with connectivity. They said things like 'let's capture rainwater runoff from the Major Deegan and direct it to a vacant parcel of land at 149th Street.' Who the heck was expecting that? I'd never made the connection. Capture the water, bring it into the park, have a portion of the park serve as a way to clean the water, but also create a soft marsh. The brilliance was in the connectivity between the existing infrastructure and the available resources."
Mr. Marrella, from City Planning, was pleased, too. "The students prepared an amazing plan that builds on the Vision 2020 recommendations for the area to address the serious challenges of the waterfront -- physical, financial, and environmental," he said. "We're now working with the Borough President's office and local advocates to evaluate how to best move forward on the recommendations of the students, including examining grants for pursuing specific projects."
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HISTORIC HOBOKEN FERRY SLIPS RESTORED AND REOPENED
| | After 40 Years, Ferries Dock at the Original Slips
On December 7, restored ferry slips at historic Hoboken Terminal were reopened after 40 years. "The Hoboken Ferry Terminal restoration project has helped to preserve the City's past while paving the way for the future," said Mayor Dawn Zimmer in a prepared statement.
NJ Transit and the Port Authority of NY/NJ worked together on the $120 million project, repairing the terminal's roof as well as wooden structures under the building, restoring the building's copper facade and constructing a 230-foot tall clock tower modeled after the original tower which was taken down about 60 years ago. The Beaux-Arts building, with its Tiffany windows, ornate exterior and grand waiting room (see photo), was constructed in 1907 by the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad and considered a quintessential intermodal station, linking ferry, rail, vehicles and pedestrian facilities. Today, 50,000 people arrive or depart daily from the terminal, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.
"The restoration of ferry service into the original slips at the Erie Lackawanna terminal will allow for expansion of NY Waterway ferry service and greater flexibility in providing commuters and leisure-travelers a reliable, convenient and carefree mode of transportation into Manhattan," said Paul Goodman, CEO of Billybey Ferry Company, owner of NY Waterway, which provides service to and from the terminal.
Click to see a photo of one of the restored slips, published by The Jersey Journal.
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NEW WATERFRONT PARK DESTINED FOR STATEN ISLAND'S NORTH SHORE
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|  Unusual Application of DOT Plaza Program The NYC Department of Transportation Plaza Program began creating public plazas with input from non-profit partners in 2008. Each year since then, between three and eight sites around the City have been selected to be redesigned and reconstructed, after public visioning sessions and work by professional design teams. As announced in early December by City Council member Debi Rose (right), one of the four 2011 sites was, for the first time, waterfront property. Van Name Van Pelt Waterfront Plaza is a shoreline site in Richmond Terrace so named because it is between Van Name and Van Pelt Avenues. According to the DOT, which quotes local longtime residents, " the site had historically served as a neighborhood beachfront and picnic area in the late 1800s and early 1900s." From this shady waterfront one can see the Shooters Island bird sanctuary.
Earlier this year, DOT transferred the site to the NYC Parks Dept. The design phase, with community input, begins in 2012, and construction commences in 2013. The Northfield Community Local Development, the North Shore Waterfront Conservancy, the Staten Island Economic Development Corporation, the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation and the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance were on hand at the announcement. |
GETTING SHIPSHAPE AT SOUTH STREET SEAPORT MUSEUM
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|  While Volunteers Tend to NYC's
Precious Historic Ships, Executives Plan the Museum's Reopening
For the first time in many months, dozens of volunteers were welcomed back on December Saturdays to work on the ships of the South Street Seaport Museum.
Pioneer, Wavertree, Peking, and other Museum vessels are all getting attention, according to development director Sarah Landreth. "The volunteers managed to completely fill a 30-yard dumpster by the end of the first day," she said. "Spars were rearranged, some which required a dozen people to lift, materials and tools were sorted, and decks and workspaces were cleaned and arranged." At right, volunteers carry a spar off the Wavertree. Below, volunteers work in the rigging of Pioneer. Click here to see a video of the volunteers moving the Pioneer's main boom, courtesy of the Save Our Seaport advocacy group.
 On December 16, South Street Seaport Museum president Susan Henshaw Jones, who is also the director of the Museum of the City of New York (MCNY), kept the momentum going with an enthusiastic report to the City Council. She and her staff have, by agreement with the NYC Economic Development Corporation, one year with a possible six month extension, "to see if it's feasible for us to make the Seaport work financially and programmatically. I have no concern about making it work programmatically."
Fixing the Seaport Museum's finances is another matter. "If the Museum can be sustainable around the $3 million level, we say we can make a go with uptown support," Ms. Jones said. Prior to the take-over by MCNY, the Seaport Museum had annual expenses of $5 million plus.
Winnowing the museum's fleet, the staff is hoping to send the Peking -- a huge budget drain that "has no connection to New York City" -- home to Hamburg, Germany. "We have to have plans for the Peking by May 6 because we want to put Wavertree in Peking's place on the south side of Pier 16," Ms. Jones said. She has activated a City capital grant of $3.3 million to repair the Wavertree.
The new Seaport Museum president has initiated strong new partnerships with Community Board 1 and the Howard Hughes Corporation, which owns the Seaport Marketplace. She'd like to address the vendor stalls on Fulton Street, the overly leafy trees at Titanic Park that block views of Schermerhorn Row, and the idea of reopening the Fulton Street pedestrian mall to vehicles.
The Museum opens on Wednesday, January 25, but Ms. Jones is concerned about what happens after the initial celebratory attention. "Nobody knows the Seaport Museum is in the midst of Fulton Street," she told the Council members. "We got invisible. I don't know how that happened. We're trying to be edgy... and we want to ceate a mass of criticial activities that make people want to come here."
New exhibitions in the works include a possible show from the Museum of American Folk Art in June and a juried exhibition of images of Occupy Wall Street.
Captain John Doswell of the Working Harbor Committee told the City Council members assembled that the Museum is a reminder of the City's maritime history, "of what made us."
"Without the museum the story wouldn't be told," he said. "But this can't be borne on the shoulders of one team or one institution. I am appealing to the City Council and the City of New York to provide all the assistance it possibly can to bring the Museum back. There's very limited time and a lot to do."
Top photos by museum manager Jerry Gallagher. Below, looking north on South Street, "the Street of Ships," around 1820.
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METROPOLITAN WATERFRONT ALLIANCE & SOUTH ST. SEAPORT MUSEUM MAKE MERRY
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| Alliance Partners and Museum Friends from All Over the City Celebrate Together
 "It feels like the waterfront people have come home," said MWA president Roland Lewis, addressing hundreds of happy waterfront and museum advocates on December 14 in the 19th-century brick and timber rooms of Schermerhorn Row, the heart and home of South Street Seaport Museum.
Susan Henshaw Jones, director of the Museum of the City of New York and now president of the revived South Street Seaport Museum, gave the crowd a sense of the enthusiastic planning sweeping the downtown museum. Children's programming has restarted, the vessels are getting much-needed attention, and the museum is initiating new partnerships with local organizations and agencies. Starting January 25, the Museum will be open Wednesday through Saturday, 10am to 6pm. 
 If you'd like to join the South Street Seaport Museum, click here. Your membership will include free access to the Museum of the City of New York.
Left, South Street Seaport Museum manager Jerry Gallagher and director of development Sarah Landreth. Above right, Ed Acker of Liberty Outrigger, and Jean Preece and John Doswell of the Working Harbor Committee. Right, Ted Gruber of the Long Island City Community Boathouse speaks with waterfront photographer Mitch Waxman. |
| MWA PARTNER SPOTLIGHT |
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Expanding every week, the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance is more than a coalition; it's a force. We are ferry captains, shipping executives, park directors, scientists, sailors, paddlers, swimmers, teachers, urban planners, architects and more. Together, we advocate for the best possible waterfront in the best possible city, a waterfront that is clean and accessible to all, with a robust maritime workforce and efficient, affordable waterborne transportation. Join us! Contact Louis Kleinman at lkleinman@waterfrontalliance.org. Meet some Partners of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance: |
| WATERFRONT NEWSLINKS |
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Congressmember Bob Turner working to fix water woes"...Projects discussed included ecosystem restoration in Jamaica Bay, the Jamaica Bay Federal Channel (at Rockaway Inlet) Navigation project, the Storm Risk Reduction Project at Plumb Beach and a Reformulation Study on the Rockaway Peninsula..."Queens Courier, December 16, 2011 Carnes and Alfred: Shipwrights in Greenpoint, Brooklyn (II)"The following is the second of a ten-part essay about 19th century Greenpoint's transformation from isolated farmland into a center of shipbuilding and waterborne commerce..."Greenpoint Gazette, December 14, 2011 Volunteers Lend Hand on Gowanus Cleanup"The first time the local Gowanus Canal Conservancy in Brooklyn cleared a dead-end lot at Second Avenue, the waste had to be carted away by dump truck. A cleanup day in November involved around 70 volunteers, according to Andrew Simons, chairman of the local group, who filled a dozen 55-gallon bags of trash and another 20 of leaves and weeds..."The Wall Street Journal, December 14, 2011 Newtown Creek Stars in Micah Ganske's "Toxic Land""Newtown Creek is home to birds, fish and courageous kayakers..."Greenpoint Gazette, December 14, 2011 For Bridge Built Long Ago, No End to Repairs"On Monday, the Henry Hudson Bridge - that triumphalist crossing over the Harlem River, a steel archway slicing through a verdant vista of water, trees and cliffs - celebrates its diamond anniversary, the 75th..."The New York Times, December 12, 2011 Told to Diversify, Dock Union Offers a Nearly All-White Retort"What part of diversity don't you understand? That essentially was the question that visibly irritated members of the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor asked at a hearing in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday morning. They wanted to know why the shipping companies that operate in the ports of New York and New Jersey could not find a single black, Hispanic or Asian person who could fill a stevedore's job..."The New York Times, November 30, 2011 (back to top) |
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