Tuesday, April 28, 2009
CHA 50th Anniversary Celebration: CORRECTION
http://www.nycharities.org/event/event.asp?CE_ID=3531
If you have already replied by mail, the post office has begun returning envlelopes to senders. Please forgive the error and re-send your reply to 11201. Thanks very much and sorry.
CHA Flickr photo pool
http://www.flickr.com/groups/cobblehill/
If you have a Flickr account, please join the group 'Cobble Hill History'.
We invite everyone to add their photos of Cobble Hill, past and present, to the pool. We would like this to become a community resource of neighborhood visual history.
If you share photos in the pool, please tag and name the photos with the following helpful information: street, year, event, and anything else that would aid searching by others. Example: a photo of Halloween 2008 on Clinton Street would be 'Clinton Street, 2008, Halloween'.
Many thanks to Jennifer Wiese for overseeing the pool and to Franklin Stone for uploading many lovely photos of Halloween 2008.
Thanks for joining the pool.
Jeff
Cobble Hill Plant Sale
Come join the Cobble Hill Tree Fund at our Annual Plant Sale, Saturday May 2, 10:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.WHAT: Cobble Hill Plant Sale
We expect to have an excellent selection of Annuals for planting in gardens, tree pits, window boxes, and some nice Perennials. There will be plants for both sun and shade.
Proceeds go to planting and supporting our neighborhood's street trees. Help be a part in keeping Cobble Hill Green!
WHEN: Saturday, May 2, 10.30 a.m. to 3.00 p.m.
WHERE: Cobble Hill Park
Brooklynite in the New Yorker
LICH head and neck cancer screening
WHAT: Free head and neck cancer screenings at LICHWhile lung cancer cases are down, cancers in the head and neck appear to be increasing. Fortunately, most head and neck cancers produce early symptoms and are curable if caught early. You should know the possible warning signs so you can alert your doctor to your symptoms as soon as possible.
"Remember—successful treatment of head and neck cancer can depend on early detection. Knowing and recognizing the signs of head and neck cancer can save your life," says Dr. Krish Sundaram, Vice Chairman of Otolaryngology at Long Island College Hospital (LICH) of Brooklyn.
If you are experiencing any of the following problems which won’t go away, please call the number below to schedule an appointment for Long Island College Hospital’s FREE screening:
A growth or sore in the mouth which does not improve,
Throat pain,
Difficulty or pain while swallowing,
Hoarseness,
Bloody cough, or
Lump in the neck.
Please call Elaine or Abby at 718-780-1498, ext. 0, to schedule an appointment.
For more information about head and neck cancers, visit the comprehensive website of the American Academy of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, at http://www.entnet.org/HealthInformation.
WHEN: Thursday, April 30, 2009, 1.00 to 3.00 p.m.
WHERE: Department of Otolaryngology (ENT) at LICH, 134 Atlantic Avenue, between Clinton and Henry Streets
Sunday, April 26, 2009
get your tickets soon: CHA party on May 7
This is going to be a fabulous event with music by Michael's Dreamland Orchestra and catering by EVENTfull.nyc. Just click the link to get your ticket. We are going to announce a major project that could run for the next fifty years. Come to the party to find out what it is.
What: CHA 50th Anniversary Party
When: Thursday, May 7, 2009, 6.30 p.m. to 9.00 p.m.
Where: Brooklyn Borough Hall
Thursday, April 16, 2009
100 trucks a day at Pier 7?
Pier 7 is one pier south of Brooklyn Bridge Park and almost as close to Cobble Hill.
The Red Hook community has been kept in the loop about this. Now that it concerns Cobble Hill, we need to be heard, too. I urge the community to make itself heard at the committee's next meeting. Here are the details:
WHAT: CB6 Economic and Waterfront Development Committee meeting
WHEN: Monday, April 20, 2009 at 6.30 p.m.
WHERE: 250 Baltic Street
Brooklyn Bridge Park: the case against the berm
A key element of our critique is the proposed berm. Merriam-Webster's online dictionary defines a 'berm' as:
1: a narrow shelf, path, or ledge typically at the top or bottom of a slope; also: a mound or wall of earth or sand.The berm proposed for the park would be a long, thirty-foot-high mound that would run along the upland portion of the park parallel to the BQE. It will take up a lot of land and be off-limits to park users. What is its purpose then? The park's designers claim that it will act as a sound attenuator for the noise from the BQE. We don't believe it.
2: the shoulder of a road.
We object to the berm for the following reasons:
1. No one has convincingly demonstrated that it will achieve the proposed level of sound attenuation or that that level, even if possible, would be worth the costs.The state Department of Transportation has begun a study to decide how to renovate the BQE's triple-cantilever structure. The triple-cantilever includes the Promenade and the two levels of highway beneath it. The study is scheduled to conclude in 2017. (Yes, that's a long time.) Covering the roadway is one of the options that the DOT study group will consider.
2. The land that it will occupy and render off-limits could be put to better use.
3. It will turn Furman Street into a dark cavern.
4. The coming renovation of the BQE could result in a covered roadway anyway, thus obviating the need for the berm.
We can make a covered roadway a more likely outcome if we begin working now to generate Brooklyn-wide consensus on its desirability. The CHA is beginning that work now, eight years ahead of time. We believe that the park's success depends in part on the quiet that a covered BQE would make possible. And if we can create that consensus, convince our elected officials to join us, and get the roadways covered, then for sure we will not need a berm that wastes valuable parkland. Let's use that land for recreation instead.
And we are not the only ones with this idea. The Brooklyn Paper recently reported that Donald Rattner of the Studio for Civil Architecture has proposed
'a solar-panel-covered envelope to encase the highway. The proposal calls for wrapping the BQE’s triple cantilever in translucent acrylic shells to suppress roadways sounds, allowing the builders of the open space component of the ailing waterfront development to eliminate the planned sound-stifling hills.'We look forward to seeing their proposal and any other ideas for eliminating the wasteful berm from the park, with or without a covered BQE. But if we start working now to convince the DOT to cover the BQE, we can potentially have the best of both options.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
props to Mike McLaughlin
new: Cobble Hill Neighborhood Happy Hour
WHAT: The first-ever CH Neighborhood Happy Hour
WHEN: Wednesday, April 22, 2009, 6 to 9 p.m.
WHERE: Last Exit, 136 Atlantic Avenue
Jennifer says,
'Come on over and meet your neighbors! Cobble Hill residents get $4 pints and well drinks, and buckets of Miller High Life for $15.'High life, indeed.
candidates' forum, 33rd District
WHAT: 33rd District candidates' debate
WHEN: April 20, 2009, 7 to 9 p.m.
WHERE: St. Francis College, 180 Remsen Street
The event is sponsored by the Independent Neighborhood Democrats and the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
write a letter for Brooklyn Bridge Park
The Cobble Hill Association is asking everyone to join us in writing to Mayor Bloomberg and others to support Senator Squadron's plan. Every public meeting that we have held for the past several years has reiterated that removing the proposed new apartments from the park is a very high priority for our community. Now, with a new proposal on the table and the old plan in greatest doubt, is the time for all of us to act.
Below is the text of our letter to Mayor Bloomberg. We ask that you copy it, add your name and address to it, print it, and mail it. You may modify it as you see fit.
If you would like to go a step further, please see the list of addresses of other officials, at the bottom, to whom we are sending our letter.
Finally, if you don't mind, we would appreciate an e-mail message letting us know that you have sent the letter. This is just because we would like to have an approximate head count of how many letters we generate.
Thanks very much for your participation. It means a lot right now.
========
April 12, 2009
The Honorable Michael Bloomberg
City Hall
New York, New York 10007
Re: Senator Daniel Squadron’s proposal for Brooklyn Bridge Park
Dear Mayor Bloomberg,
The Cobble Hill Association has been one of the strongest advocates for a Brooklyn Bridge Park for more than two decades. Continuing our historic role as park advocates, we are writing to encourage you to support Senator Daniel Squadron’s plan for the Park’s amenities, governance, and revenue. The Squadron plan is a viable way forward that we believe will lead to a world-class park on the site and will heal the divisions sown in our community when new housing was added to the Park as a revenue-generating element.
We wholeheartedly endorse the Squadron plan in nearly all its particulars. In the amenities portion of the plan, we support the Senator’s call for:
• active, affordable, year-round athletic recreation, housed within a bubble if necessary;
• a floating pool dedicated to the Park;
• a seasonal ice-skating rink;
• a ferry landing at Pier 6 that will link Atlantic Avenue to Governors Island; and
• a facility for community recreation and the arts.
We are intrigued by Senator Squadron’s call for a public school at 360 Furman Street, or elsewhere in the Park, and we urge the City and State to consider it seriously. A school in the Park would have the added benefits of insuring year-round use of the Park and would obviate the need for a school at 10 Dock Street in Dumbo, a project that threatens to obscure the historic views of Brooklyn’s great bridges.
In the governance portion of the plan, we agree with Senator Squadron on all of the following points:
• designating Brooklyn Bridge Park as parkland, as defined by law and regulation;
• creating a Harbor Park Task Force to coordinate governance of all the parks in the harbor; and
• creating a Marine Infrastructure Task Force to coordinate efforts to attract federal and state revenues for the maintenance of the harbor parks’ marine infrastructure.
We are especially excited by Senator Squadron’s proposal for a new revenue model, the Park Increment Recapture (PIRC). The PIRC will not raise anyone’s property taxes, nor will it take any revenue from the City’s financial plan since it is based only on future rezonings. It is a simple and elegant solution to a problem that has vexed Park supporters for half a decade: how to maintain the Park without the proposed new housing. The argument all along has been that housing is necessary to pay for the park’s operations budget. No one wants the housing per se. The housing plan has only sown division and distrust since it was first foisted on the neighborhood. Nor does housing belong in a park as a matter of principle. What an awful precedent the City would be setting by building apartments inside a park. Senator Squadron’s PIRC proposal may be the way to prevent that dreadful precedent from ever happening. It deserves your support.
We disagree with the Squadron plan on only one substantive point: we believe that the PIRC’s cap ought to be raised so that the proposed hotel at Pier 1 can also be removed from the Park.
Our community in Cobble Hill has been known for its keen criticism, these past five years, of nearly all aspects of the Park: its revenue model, its design, its governance, and so on. We have made these criticisms because we care deeply about the Park. We believe that the Squadron plan is the best way forward. It eliminates the need for new housing inside the park by replacing the revenue from the development parcels with revenue from future rezonings that, by definition, are no part of the City’s financial plan. If the Park increases property values, as it undoubtedly will, we think it’s a fine idea for the Park itself to benefit from that outcome.
We urge you to adopt the Squadron plan so that the Park can be built housing-free and without the re-direction of a single budgeted dollar from the City’s coffers.
Thanks.
========
The Honorable David Paterson
State Capitol
Albany, NY 12224
The Honorable Christine Quinn
224 West 30 Street, Suite 1206
New York, New York 10001
The Honorable Marty Markowitz
Brooklyn Borough Hall
209 Joralemon Street
Brooklyn, New York 11201
The Honorable Sheldon Silver
250 Broadway
Suite 2307
New York, NY 10007
The Honorable Joan Millman
341 Smith Street
Brooklyn, New York 11231
The Honorable Bill de Blasio
2907 Fort Hamilton Parkway
Brooklyn, New York 11218
The Honorable David Yassky
114 Court Street
Brooklyn, New York 11201
Ms. Regina Myer
President, Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation
633 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10017
The Honorable Malcolm A. Smith
205-19 Linden Boulevard
St. Albans, NY 11412
Friday, April 10, 2009
candidates' forum: April 25
Here are the details.
WHAT: Candidates' forum, 39th City Council District.
WHEN: Saturday, April 25, 10.30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
WHERE: Carroll Gardens Library, Auditorium B, 396 Clinton Street (at Union Street).
One way that you can participate in the event is by submitting questions by e-mail to cgcord [at] gmail [dot] com. The deadline for questions is April 17. There will also be questions taken from the audience.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Squadron hosts Bk Bridge Park meeting: Sunday
I have seen the presentation already, and I think it is a very promising idea that everyone in the community should consider. Squadron may have found a way to eliminate the proposed housing from the park once and for all.
From Squadron's office:
'Senator Squadron will outline his plan for how to build a real, world-class Brooklyn Bridge Park. The meeting will consist of a presentation, followed by a Q&A session.'It is very important that the Cobble Hill community come out for this event.
WHAT: Senator Squadron's public meeting about BBPark
WHEN: Sunday, April 5, 2009 at 3 p.m.
WHERE: LICH, conference room A
The CHA's goals for the park remain what they have always been. We want:
-A world-class park with year-round recreation;
-No new housing or hotels in the park;
-The proposed berm elements replaced by usable land;
-More neighborhood diversity on the board of the BBPark Development Corporation;
-Ferry service at Pier 6; and
-Full financial disclosure by the BBPDC.
Please come out on Sunday and join us in supporting these priorities.
next precinct council meeting: April 7
We encourage everyone in the community to attend a precinct council meeting and to get to know the men and women who keep our neighborhood safe. We are all partners in public saftey.
WHAT: 76th Precinct Council meeting
WHERE: 76th Precinct, 191 Union Street
WHEN: Tuesday, April 7 at 7.30 (and every first Tuesday)