Greenpoint Environmental Advocates Raise Concerns About Potential High Rises on the Bushwick Inlet

Update, March 21, 2025: this post has been updated with a link to the project’s website.

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It might be April Fool’s, but for some Greenpoint locals, it’s no laughing matter.

An upcoming CB1 land use meeting on April 1 will feature a presentation on two potential new high-rise buildings sitting directly on the Bushwick Inlet. Local environmental advocates say these massive buildings would disturb local wildlife, hinder the inlet’s ability to help prevent future flooding, and fail to address the neighborhood’s dire lack of affordable housing. The buildings would sit on a parcel of land owned by the MTA, known as 40 Quay.

“MTA’s developer Gotham Org is seeking a zoning enhancement to build two huge luxury towers – 60 stories (30% taller than any on the Northside & Greenpoint) and 45 stories tall – on the shore of Bushwick Inlet and looming over the park,” says Save the Inlet, a local group opposing the new buildings.

“At just 50 feet from the water’s edge, the towers pose a direct threat to wildlife and the natural sanctuary of the inlet and will reduce the inlet to a water feature of the huge development.”

Since the 2005 Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront rezoning, the relationship between open parcels of land, real estate developers, and North Brooklyn locals could best be described as precarious.

As we reported last month, the long-awaited demolition of the CitiStorage building heralded that the dream of a united Bushwick Inlet Park would finally become a reality, as the last parcel of land needed to create unbroken green space uniting the Greenpoint and Williamsburg waterfront. Some residents feared that the vacant CitiStorage lot would turn into another high-rise building. While those fears turned out to be unfounded, as the city owns that parcel of land, a recent meeting about the park sparked new concerns about the 40 Quay parcel. 

Greenpoint has seen its population boom over the past decade. Since 2010, the neighborhood has created more new housing units than any other New York City neighborhood, but it also has less green space than most neighborhoods. The disparity between the lack of open space and the influx of new residents could cause issues.

“If upzoned, the 40 Quay mega-development will bring in almost 3,000 new residents while adding almost no additional open space,” according to Save the Inlet’s website.

To learn more about the project (which has been dubbed Monitor Point). in advance of the meeting, you can head to the project’s website, which touts the complex’s possible benefits of boosting mixed-income affordable housing and includes publicly accessible waterfront space.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? You’re encouraged to bring them to the meeting on April 1, starting at 6 pm, at the Polish and Slavic Center (176 Java St).