Pier 26 Update

Here's a very good writeup of Monday's meeting.

Another interesting snippet of publicly available info - remember that opinion poll about waterfront use that I posted? Well, the results were pretty wild:

What would you like New York City to do with its waterfront? (3/9/2007)

15% parks, with views and promenades
4% cultural destinations
1% housing
78% recreation opportunities: boating, swimming, fishing, etc
2% maintain manufacturing

OK - there are definitely ways that poll could have been better. Multiple choice, for starters - looking at the poor old Rustbucket alone, that barge, all by itself, provided 3 out of those 5 items - it was a lovely place to sit & watch the river roll by (park, with view if not promenade), it was an awesome venue for concerts & other performancess, and of course water access was being provided for all kinds & levels of boaters (and the odd swimmer too). Then I guess the other thing I would've liked to see was some mention of "P-O-R-T" - not ALL four letter words are bad...

I guess the only thing I would be sort of vehemently against would be housing. I like the Hawaiian plan of the beaches are supposed to be PUBLIC - people can build houses BY the beach, yes, but there are rules about maintaining public right-of-ways providing access to those public spaces. The other ones - yes, for me personally, I don't think I'd still be living in this city if it weren't for the kayaking, but I've seen all of those uses & they all seem to be of value - and not necessarily incompatible (any more than motorized & non-motorized vessels are, pffft) as long as each set of users recognizes the value of the others & all work together.

whoa. that was one big pipe dream moment wasn't it?

Anyways. Picky picky picky, that was clearly not meant to be a highly scientific poll, it's just part of a series of weekly snapshots. For what it was, the outcome was interesting!

Now I go attempt to finish the seemingly endless work I had this week. Silly silly me, I insisted on having a bit of an after-work life this week - paying for it now. Blech.