PortSide NewYork Threatened

PortSide NewYork, one of our area's most lively and unique cultural resources, is facing the loss of their berth at Atlantic Basin which could mean doom for the historic tanker Mary Whalen.  After years of struggling to establish a permanent presence in the Red Hook Container Terminal, new Homeland Security rules make it nearly impossible to hold meaningful activities at the ship.  PortSide is holding an emergency meeting to address the crisis.  More background information here.

When: Monday, February 27.
Time: 6:30p - 8:30p.
Where: LICH corner of Atlantic + Hicks, enter on Hicks Street.

Columbia Street Post Office Closing

Please help keep our post office on Columbia Street open.  Operator Rita Farone has a petition that you can sign at the post office at  257 Columbia Street.  It is also circulating in the neighborhood. 

We urge you to write to our elected officials as well.  Jump to The Word on Columbia Street for a handy list of links and the Postmaster General's address.

Meet the New Stevedore

The Next Step to Reduce Pollution from the Port [UPDATED]

CoWNA has endorsed the New York State Commercial Goods Transportation Industry Fair Play Act (A8997), and I want to take a minute to explain why.

This bill would protect truck drivers—like the ones who work on the Red Hook port—from misclassification as independent contractors. For neighborhoods like ours, this is not only a moral concern. It's actually a serious public health hazard.

Trucking companies engage in misclassification in order to increase profits by shifting business costs onto their employees. So, misclassified truck drivers are made to shoulder the cost of buying and maintaining their own trucks. But in the ports of New York and New Jersey, drivers who are misclassified as independent contractors earn just $28,000 a year, on average. That means the ports are filled with old, highly polluting trucks—many of them as much as 18 years old!

The results are dirty air and an estimated 1,663 premature deaths, 1,444 non-fatal heart attacks, 59,871 childhood asthma attacks and 3,630 cases of acute childhood bronchitis a year.

It’s time to clean up the port trucking industry.

But on $28,000 a year, misclassified truck drivers cannot afford the cost of new clean trucks. Only trucking companies have the economic power to do what is needed. Yet they will avoid the responsibility as long as they can misclassify their drivers as independent contractors.

CoWNA has urged Assemblywoman Millman to add her name to A8997 as a cosponsor. When the bill is introduced in the State Senate, we’ll ask the same of Senator Squadron.

We’ll keep you posted with any news.

UPDATE: Whaddya know! There is a Senate bill--S6267. A note to Senator Squadron is on its way.

CoWNA Seeks Nominations for Officers

Columbia Waterfront Neighborhood Association seeks nominations for the following executive positions in our organization: President, Vice President, Secretary.

Please submit an email or letter of interest with a short, one-paragraph bio and statement of interest. We will hold elections at a general meeting to be scheduled for spring 2012. For submittal or more information:  contact@cowna.org


A brief overview of our activities is available here.

New Building on Columbia - continued

We've received two comments on our earlier post about the proposed new building on Columbia Street (see below).  A clarification of the criticism of the original post is in order:  nowhere is it indicated that the new building should be designed using a traditional or historic vocabulary.  The Waterfront District is indeed a 'mixed bag' of styles (as are most New York neighborhoods, actually) and of course contemporary design can coexist successfully with historic buildings.

The problem with Loading Dock 5's project is just that it is not very good, not that it is 'contemporary'.  And being 'green' does not compensate for clumsiness.  Unfortunately one can't refer to it any longer.  That the image of the building was removed from their website indicates that either they or their client was not happy about it being seen by the public.  Why would that be, if the designers and the developer were confident of their work? 

I am encouraged that there is some discussion about this project! I hope that others, plus the developer and designers (with plans and images, hopefully) join in: we'd love to see a lively exchange about this: it would help all of us clarify what kind of city we hope to live in and signal our expectations to the inevitable future developers.

Redistricting Blues

Every 10 years, after the census, the Assembly, State Senate and Congressional maps are redrawn. This process is called redistricting. Yesterday, we saw the first--and possibly last--draft of the new Assembly and Senate maps. (The Congressional ones aren't done yet.)

So, how does the Columbia Waterfront fare?

Not well.

Our Senate district may get a new name, but that's no big deal. We're in the 25th. We may become the 26th. Still, it's basically the same district now represented by State Senator Daniel Squadron.

The rub is the Assembly.

Right now, our whole neighborhood is in the 52nd Assembly District. Joan Millman is our assemblywoman. But under the proposed maps, we get divided between the 52nd and the 51st. That's the Red Hook-Sunset Park district now held by Assemblyman Felix Ortiz.

Take a look:

Now, this is only a draft. A lot could happen between now and ... well, redistricting is contentious, and it has a way of dragging on. Let's just say a lot could happen. Then again, maybe not.

This point is this: If the final maps look like the proposed ones, then the voting power of the Columbia Waterfront, such as it is, will be diluted. When Assemblymember 52 looks at our neighborhood, or Assemblymember 51, they're going to see a lot fewer votes than Assemblymember 52 sees now.

This may or may not matter in the short run. But in the long run, two Assemblymembers are not better than one.