Flat Stanley Visits NYC Part 2 - and now the more usual New Yorky stuff (plus kind of a lot about trains)

Note from Bonnie - once again today, I'm turning my blog over to Flat Stanley, who's visiting me from Ms. Rozell's class in Texas. Hi, Ms. Rozell's class! For more about who Flat Stanley is and why we're playing tourist, check yesterday's post. Take it away, Stanley!

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Thanks, Bonnie! So at the end of the last post, we were just about to go down into the subway to head on into Manhattan. Brooklyn is a great borough and you could just visit there for a week and not get bored at all, but there are a couple of really famous NYC landmarks that we can get to really easily from Grand Army Plaza, and Bonnie decided that we should go see a couple of those too, so we're on our way! 

We're still in Brooklyn, but I just wanted to show you this neat subway art. This looks kind of old-fashioned but it's actually part of a program where the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority, the group that runs the public transportation) brings in artists to do station-wide art projects that make being in the subway a lot more interesting and fun. A lot of the older subway stations actually have beautiful mosaics and other decorations because they were built right around the beginning of the 20th century, when there was a thing called the City Beautiful movement, when city planners tried to make things that even everyday people used into something beautiful. 

Later in the 20th century, NYC fell on some hard times - have you ever seen pictures of subway cars all covered in graffiti? That was in the 70's when the city almost went bankrupt! The subways actually got to be scary places to go, and the stations that were built or re-done then were not beautiful at all, and the old ones that had been beautiful got all sad and dirty, but then the city started to recover and things got better. The nice old stuff that had was still there was cleaned up, and then somebody thought of doing this artist program to make the stations that were too dreary to do anything about look nice, and it's worked out great! Bonnie actually thought this plaque might have been from the old days but when she looked it up on Google she found out that an artist named Jane Greengold was invited to decorate this station in 1995. The little band of mosaic tile at the top is probably from the old days but the plaque is part of Ms. Greengold's station-wide nod to the Soldiers and Sailors Arch, just upstairs in Grand Army Plaza. You can read a little bit more about it here if you want to. 

Ms. Greengold called her theme "Wings for the IRT: The Irresistible Romance of Travel", but to a New Yorker, "IRT" also stands for "Interborough Rapid Transit", which was the name of the first company to run a subway line in New York City. The first subway line started in 1904 and it was only in Manhattan, but then it spread out, and the Grand Army Plaza station was part of that company way back when. New York's a big city with lots of people who want to get around, so another company came along to see if they could make some money doing that too; that one started as Brooklyn Rapid Transit and then when they started going to Manhattan they changed to Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit, "BMT". Then the city decided that they should actually run their own subway line too, and that was called the Independent Subway, which got shortened to "IND". The two other ones ended up not making their owners enough money after a while, and the city ended up taking them both over in 1940 and gradually blending the 3 systems (which had been built as totally separate!) into 1. You can tell somebody's a real old-school "Noo Yawker" if they talk about taking the IRT or the BMT instead of calling their line by a letter or a number (like Bonnie rides the B or the Q to work and she didn't really know all this stuff by heart, she sort of knew about it but we had to go to this site to get all the details).

Anyways, sorry, wow, that was a lot about the subway, wasn't it? But it's kind of neat how it got to be the way it is today. I'll try not to talk quite so much after this! 

Now we're in Manhattan looking down Wall Street. This is more what you think of when you think of New York City, isn't it? This is way way way downtown, but it's called Wall Street because a long time ago this is where the wall that marked the north end of the city was. Back then the city was still called New Amsterdam, it was Dutch too. This is where the New York Stock Exchange is, and although more people are starting to live down here (the real estate people love making up cute names for neighborhoods and they call this FiDi, short for Financial District), it used to just be banks, banks and more banks! If we had a little more time we could walk down and see the stock exchange but the day was actually going a little faster than Bonnie had expected it to!  

And what she really wanted to do was take me for a ride on the Staten Island Ferry. This is a fantastic thing to do if you ever come to New York City - it doesn't take very long, the views are incredible (I'll show you some of those in a minute!) and it's actually free! 

Here we are inside the ferry terminal. Bonnie had actually had a day off from work the day we did all of this, but it was a work day and it was getting pretty close to rush hour - that's why there are so many people here, they're all waiting to get on the boat and go home to Staten Island (which is also full of houses and trees and is a much quieter place to live that Manhattan, which is really busy). 

The ferry boats are nice and big, though, so there's plenty of room for everybody. We're riding the Spirit of America today, getting ready to cross upper New York Harbor - there's somebody we HAVE to say hi to out there! 

And here we go! We're looking back at downtown; there's another ferry waiting to load up, at the height of rush hour a ferry leaves that terminal every 15 minutes! It takes about 25 minutes to cross the harbor so at rush hour you always pass another ferry going the other way. We're also looking up the East River - that's the river that runs along the east side of Manhattan, but it's also called the East River because that's the river a boat would take to go east out into Long Island Sound.

Further out in NY Harbor - I wish it was a prettier day because when the sky is blue and the sun is shining on the glass buildings, this is a spectacular view! Here you can also see the Hudson, which runs along the west side of Manhattan. The Hudson is also sometimes called the North River, because that's the river a boat would take to go north to Albany and beyond. The Lenape, whose territory this was at one time, called the Hudson "Muhheakantuck", meaning "river that flows both ways", because the Hudson (along with all of the major waterways that surround NYC) is tidal, coming in and going out with the moon - so for a little over six hours it flows north, and then it slows down, and stops, and then starts up again going south, and does that for a little over six hours, and then slows down and stops and starts up going north again and does that again and again pretty much forever. This is great for people in boats (especially little ones like Bonnie likes) because if you time your trip right you can go from Manhattan to, oh, say, the Statue of Liberty and back and have the current helping you out the whole time. If you time it wrong, it can be a huge pain, so most boaters around here know how to read their current tables! 

And speaking of the Statue of Liberty - 

There she is! The Lady in the Harbor. You guys probably all know a lot about her already, and of course everybody knows what she looks like, but how can you come to NYC without at least seeing her? Off to the right is a little bit of Ellis Island, where a whole lot of peoples' grandparents and great grandparents first came to the United States. We didn't go there today, that would be a whole extra blog post, but Bonnie's been there and when people ask her what they should do if they are visiting NYC, she usually recommends that. She's never actually been to visit the Statue of Liberty, but she's sailed and paddled past a zillion times and just never gets tired of seeing the Statue. 

We're playing tourist out here on the water today, and a lot of people do like to play here, but there's a lot of work that still goes on in NY Harbor, the city grew up where it did because of this beautiful sheltered harbor. Here's a tugboat not too far from Staten Island, probably waiting to go collect a barge they're going to take somewhere. Every Labor Day Weekend there's a big tugboat race up by Manhattan, Bonnie says it's fantastic! 

And this is the only shot we actually took ON Staten Island - there are some great places to visit on Staten Island but again, we just didn't have time - hint: if you ever mail yourself to NYC, make sure the person you mail yourself to has more than one day to take you around! We're getting back on the same ferry we just got off of - they make everybody get off of the ferry when it lands even if you're going straight back, so the crew can do a quick clean-up without falling over people. 

Looking up the Kill van Kull, which goes on behind Staten Island. You see the word "Kill" in a lot of place names around here, the Kill Van Kull runs into the Arthur Kill, which goes by the Fresh Kills landfill, and there's Peekskill and Fishkill and Catskill and Peterskill, but it's not because New Yorkers are really angry all the time (they can be sometimes, but mostly they aren't, just like most people), it's another one of those Dutch words, and it just means a creek or other narrow body of water. The Kill van Kull is still a very busy area for commercial shipping - you can see a few of the big ships that have to go in there to get to where they need to ti load or unload - Bonnie's been back there in a kayak and she says it's fun to see the big ships going by, but little boats have to be really careful because the big guys don't have much room to move in there! 

There's another Staten Island Ferry - now we're going back to Manhattan and they're on their way where we just were. 

When we'd started out this afternoon we thought we would finish with a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, but we're running out of daylight, so instead we'll just walk up and take a picture of it. We passed the tall ship Peking on the way - this is a HUGE old ship and is part of the South Street Museum fleet - unfortunately they're looking for someone to buy the Peking as it's really expensive to take care of a ship like this, and the museum has another slightly smaller one, the Wavertree, that they've decided to concentrate on. She's off in drydock being fixed up now, should be beautiful when she comes back!

And you can just see the bridge in the distance. So we'll just walk a little further north - 

And there she is, the Brooklyn Bridge, standing here across the East River since 1883. It's really too bad we didn't have time to walk across, that would've been a perfect end to my day here!

Off in the background you can see the slightly newer Manhattan Bridge, which opened in 1909. You can walk across that one too but the Brooklyn Bridge is more designed with walkers in mind. Further north from there - can't see it from here - is the Williamsburg Bridge, which opened in 1903. A good way to remember the order is just to think of a fancy car - BMW! One more thing about the Brooklyn Bridge - remember how yesterday I was talking about how Brooklyn wasn't always part of NYC? This bridge being built may have been one of the things that helped make that happen; before that, you could only get to Manhattan by ferry and this bridge connected the two cities in a way they'd never been before.

And that was all we had time for in my day in NYC! I'll be heading back to Texas soon, I had fun during my short visit to NY and I hope you enjoyed my stories about the place!

RAAAAAAAR!

Sunday's final call: Chinese New Year parade won out!

Meeting Reminder & Sea of People

Quickest of lunch hour posts -

Local interest - don't forget, tonight's the CB1 Waterfront Committee meeting where Julie Nadel has asked Connie Fishman (president of the Hudson River Park Trust) to come discuss the recommendations made by the Pier 26 design task force. I plan to be there, hope to see lots of other people. Interestingly enough, I think I remember Connie saying something at the last Advisory Council to the Trust meeting about the boathouse being larger than the restaurant - don't hold me to that, migraines do rotten things to your powers of observation, but it will be interesting to hear the Trust's side of the plans for Pier 26.

Also wanted to mention another event I heard about recently. It's at noon on April 14th, and they are looking for a WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE wearing BLUE to form a living depiction of what downtown's high tide line will be given a 10-foot rise in sea level (appropriately enough, I heard about it from Mr. SeaLevel, who's alive & well although very busy & who appreciated all the comments when he put SeaLevelNYC on permanent hiatus). I'm trying to keep this short so I'll just swipe from their website for details:

What is Sea Of People?
New York City’s coastal location makes it particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels and more powerful storm events that will result from unabated warming. In combination, these factors could result in the periodic flooding of coastal parts of our city later on in this century. Permanent inundation could result with the collapse of either the Greenland or Antarctic ice shelves, which would lead to a 10 to 20 foot rise in sea level. Such a rise would greatly reconfigure the map of our city, sinking much of lower Manhattan beneath the water. While this may be several generations off, action to avoid such an outcome must begin now.

The Sea Of People project combines the dynamics of a mass rally with the expressive power of an interactive artistic installation. Following a 12 Noon Rally in Battery Park on Saturday, April 14, thousands of participants, dressed in blue, will stretch north in two columns along the projected eastern and western 10-foot waterlines that may one day redefine lower Manhattan under the ten-foot sea level rise scenario.

The goal of the organizers is to have both lines extend one-half to one-mile north from the Battery. We estimate that a line of this length would call for 5,000 participants, and no less than 200 volunteers to help coordinate its movement and formation. Therefore the need to execute successful and broad outreach prior to the date will be of paramount importance.

If they get enough people, this will be something to see.

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.

Blizzard, and Rosemary Ruth sails home (on Tugster)

And here are a couple of pictures from my morning commute -

Here's the view out the subway window on the Manhattan Bridge - looking north up the East River. Ordinarily, looking this direction, one would see the Williamsburg Bridge. Not the case today. BTW the pier in the relative foreground is Pier 42, a former banana pier. There's still a sign on it featuring a bunch of bananas - tried to find a picture, no luck. The area it's in is actually neat place to wander - along the river, under the bridges - and is next in line for "parkification" (a presentation of the very earliest stages of planning was one of the agenda items on the agenda at the community board meeting I attended not long ago about out of interest in the Tribeca boathouse situation). There is actually a little natural beach some way further down, near the Brooklyn Bridge - it will be interesting to see how they treat that. Would be very easy to turn into access for cartop or folding kayakers - all that needs to happen is space put into a barrier - and there are a couple of people working to try to make that happen. The usual concerns about liability are in play as they always are, though. The East River does have some strong currents, and there's always concern among the people in charge that if you make it easy to get to the water, eventually somebody's going to drown & then there'll be a lawsuit. That's just NYC for ya.


Walking down Broadway in the snow.


The word "yuck" may have featured prominently on this morning's post, but actually I'm somewhat enjoying the blizzard. If I'd thought of it, I might tried to get out on the harbor, just to see how things were out there - I've done that before & it can be sort of fun. The trick, as usual, is choosing the right gear. In this case, it's all about the boat. Here is my idea of the perfect boat for a blizzard in New York Harbor:


Of course the one little bummer about it was that TQ & I decided to postpone Valentine's Day. He was talking to a snowplow driver this morning & the gentleman told him that it was a very good day to not drive if that was an option. Wednesdays & Thursdays being TQ's days off, and both of us being in complete agreement that our plans tonight were not worth him ending up with his car in a ditch, or worse, he decided to listen to the snow-driving professional. Smart, my guy. I was looking forward to seeing him tonight but I'm not a big enough fan of Valentine's Day to want him to do anything stupid.

Now, I had some other pictures I was going to post but I went over to Tugster to look for pictures or interesting info about the banana pier - surprisingly, didn't find any of those, but he had some pictures I really enjoyed seeing, taken when he joined Richard in retrieving the Rosemary Ruth from Tottenville (I unfortunately couldn't have made that trip without cloning myself - so glad Tugster posted!). In fact, I think I may detect the makings of a maritime soap opera...could the interest Tugster seems to be taking in the sweet little pinkie schooner's shapely bottom mean that he's recovering from the spell cast by the alluringly bulbous-bowed, but distant Alice?

Stay tuned for our next exciting episode!

CB 1 Estuarium Report (Pier 26, Tribeca)

ESTUARIUM REPORT

On February 5, 2007, the Pier 26 Task Force of Community Board One met to discuss the proposed estuarium at Pier 26. This is the outline of agreement that came out of that meeting:

1. THERE ARE FOUR ESSENTIAL ESTUARIUM FUNCTIONS – Based on research into other marine research facilities/estuariums, and from discussions with people familiar with this subject, the task force determined that the estuarium should provide for the following four activities:

Scientific research
Educational programming
Exhibit display
Community interface

For more details on these four functions, see attachment written by Dr. Jeffrey Levinton, Ecology and Evolution Department, Stony Brook University.

2. ACCESS – The public’s access to the river through use of this facility is very important. The estuarium -- its building, management, and programming -- should allow the public maximum contact with the Hudson River, allowing for:

Visual access into the facility from the outside – The building should be constructed to have an indoor/outdoor feel, similar to how the River Project was set up, open to the outdoors in season. (Task Force suggestions: doors that open wide to the bikeway/walkway; utilizing the ‘City Fish’ concept; using glass or other transparent material in the construction of the building).

River access -- floating docks and other get-downs allowing people near or into the water, and for scientists to take measurements, etc., as well as to provide access to the living marine exhibits.

Facility/building access -- the estuarium should be kept open to the public and be easily available to the scientists and educators who will come there. This facility should be maximally open in season (approx. April to November) however it should continue to operate for scientists and for limited public use in the winter months as well.

3. “HIGH TECH BUT LOW KEY” -- The estuarium should focus on science that can be done on-site (water sampling, specimen handling, observation, etc), allowing for the use of technology but not dominated by its use. Provisions should be made to accommodate a temperature controlled area for lab work as well as shed for instrumentation-observatory, with instruments that are mounted to take continuous data on the river (temperature, salinity, turbidity, etc.). Heating of the facility could be partial.

4. PEOPLE FRIENDLY SCIENCE -- The public should have the opportunity to observe the work of marine biologists and other scientists working there. A model employed by the Task Force was that of the African Burial Ground in Lower Manhattan, where scientists work excavating and observing on-site, with the public able to view such activities without interfering in the research.

5. SUSTAINABILITY -- Environmental considerations should be taken into account in the design of the new building. This could include features such as solar panels, passive heating panels and/or a green roof. Some Task Force members said this building could become a model for sustainability and that grant and other money could be available for such a project. Also, the building should also be practical, where form follows function, where feasible.

6. COMMUNITY ROOTS -- The Task Force felt that the estuarium has its roots in the community and it must be managed by a community-based organization with proven experience in marine biology that can grow as the facility grows. Whatever group is selected to run the estuarium, it should have a track record in managing similar facilities and working cooperatively with local communities.

7. ORGANIZATION IN CHARGE AS CARETAKER -- The organization managing the estuarium was viewed by the Task Force as a kind of caretaker for the building and its activities and it is not viewed as a ‘closed shop.’ It is expected that this facility would have many partners in its use -- it is important to the Task Force that visiting scientists can work there, and educators and the public can visit there, with ease. The Task Force considers the estuarium to be a marine field station to serve all three constituencies and each group should be afforded equal status. Balancing these activities is the role of the managing organization.

8. FLEXIBLE FENDERING FOR VESSELS -- Vessel access is needed for visiting vessels and environmental ships, including the Science Barge, Sloop Clearwater, and other vessels.

9. ESTUARIUM’S IMMEDIATE ENVIRONMENT -- The Task Force considered the benefits of studying, preserving and encouraging the growth of the native flora in the area around Pier 26 and it was determined that the outdoor spaces should be designed with the consideration of their role as Hudson River shoreline habitat. This would provide additional educational opportunities and would enhance the experience for visitors.

10. GROW ORGANICALLY -- It was agreed that the estuarium should start out small and grow ‘organically’ -- as other scientists and institutions come to use the facility, it can be expanded to accommodate those uses rather than attempting to anticipate all future uses in advance. This is viewed less as a ‘state of the art’ facility than an outpost on the river to study the estuary. Also, returning some form of what was there before the pier was torn down, even on an interim basis, was important to the Task Force.

Note on the pier structure itself: Since Pier 26 is not being rebuilt to accommodate the estuarium in any way, and is being rebuilt as a ‘generic’ pier, opportunities are lost to make it more useful for marine biology and research.


Reported by Julie Nadel, March 1, 2007

CB1 Comments on Tribeca Boathouse Design

Boathouse plan review by Community Board One’s Pier 26 Task Force at the February 21, 2007 meeting

The Task Force reviewed the Trust-approved plans for their proposed boathouse at Pier 26. We addressed the physical design of the boathouse as it relates to use.

The Task Force believes that this boathouse is inadequately designed for its intended purpose. Also, the purpose of this boathouse will be permanently compromised, and the facility will be outgrown, before it ever opens due to major design flaws.

Our review is based on the plans submitted to us from the Trust. It was noted by those present that there is no written record that these plans have ever been brought to Community Board One or other community volunteers before. It was also noted by those present at the Task Force meeting that little, if any, community input is evident in these plans, despite claims to the contrary by HRPT. After searching the records, it appears that the last Community Board One resolution on Pier 26 in general is from 2002.

The boathouse is attached to what appears to be a 10,000- square-foot restaurant, and the plans show that the restaurant uses the roof of the boathouse as its additional designated premises. The plans include the construction of an elevator on the pier for access to this area, as well as other features. Our plan review indicates that the boathouse is approximately 30% smaller than the former boathouse, with a considerable amount of space designated for purposes not central to kayak storage.

It was noted that the plans indicate storage for approximately 14.5-foot kayaks; however, most of the kayaks to use new boathouse are anticipated to be between 16 and 18 feet in length, according to Task Force members. Whatever the exact dimensions are, it appears that there is not enough room in the new boathouse to either store kayaks or maneuver them in and out safely and efficiently.

Following are the specific points the Task Force would like to address, based on the information available in the plans submitted to the Task Force by HRPT staff:

1. The boathouse’s prime purpose is to store human-powered boats and to provide a launching point for them into the Hudson River. It must be designed to fit the boats it was meant to store in the most efficient manner possible.

2. The Task Force believes it should be 30% larger, not smaller, than the previous boathouse.

3. A well-designed boathouse should be designed and constructed as soon as possible, without delay. It was troubling to the task force members that Pier 26 was torn down with no funds to restore what was there. Something serviceable should be built, however modest, to allow the downtown community to again have the water access for human-powered boating that they once enjoyed.

4. The boathouse is a seasonal structure and need not be fully or partially heated.
5. Indoor showers are unnecessary. Showers should be outside of the building, and certainly not in extended bathrooms within the structure, as shown. An outdoor hose is sufficient for this purpose.

6. Indoor toilets are unnecessary and not cost efficient—they can be placed outside the structure itself, ideally on the land, nearer sewer lines. If these toilets are similar to those installed upriver in the two other Trust-built boathouses, it is not acceptable, since they have presented major problems in their functioning.

7. Energy efficiency is very important to the Task Force members -- investigation should be undertaken to make this a more energy efficient structure. Using the roof of the structure for a restaurant will compromise options for solar power.

8. The main door does not line up with the head of the ramp to the dock. A larger door should be located where the outdoor showers and lockers are now indicated.

Additional concerns: Maximum use should be made for opportunities for shade outside the boathouse—this is not evident in current plans. The dressing rooms should be more numerous as well as smaller. The office should be relocated. Concerns were raised regarding the durability and fireproof status of the materials used in construction. Lastly, between 30 and 35 feet of outside promenade is needed for safe kayak access on the pier into the river -- it is not clear from the current plans how much of this space is available on the pier or if the restaurant has taken part of this staging area.

At the January 17, 2007 meeting of the Task Force, comments were solicited about what the community liked about the old pier. They include: The pier was “informal, not slick or commercial,” and “keep the ‘organic’ feeling’ of the place and preserve the community-based origin of the pier design and programming.” Their comments about what they would like to see there include: “The pier should fit into the historic fabric of the neighborhood, compatible with the historic architectural styles of the area,” and “what was there before was good—replace it.” The complete list of points is available from the Community Board office. It was observed by the Task Force that this boathouse and restaurant does not meet these modest standards.

We thank the volunteer members of The Downtown Boathouse for their comprehensive review of the existing plans and their dedication to human-powered boating in Hudson River Park. Their written comments are attached.

Reported by Julie Nadel, March 6, 2007












Reported by Julie Nadel, March 6, 2007