A Rendering of the Timber Bridge between Greenpoint and LIC
The good folks at Creme / Jun Aizaki Architecture and Design are hoping to bridge the gap between Greenpoint and Long Island City with a floating bridge connecting Manhattan and Vernon Avenues across Newtown Creek.
Doesn’t the Pulaski Bridge already do almost exactly that? You might ask. The project, known as the Timber Bridge at LongPoint Corridor, seeks to do it better. According to the project’s Master Plan, the Timber Bridge would reduce the 12-minute trek across the Pulaski Bridge into a 2 minute jaunt.
Beyond that, the project calls for “a renovation of the street at Manhattan Landing, a pedestrian bridge across Newtown Creek, waterfront restoration and expansion on both sides of the bridge, and a pedestrian route across the LIRR railyard.” Continue reading →
Good morning, Greenpoint! It’s Friday, and time for the Hook-up. Sometimes, I think we should just rename this column “Another Week, the Same MTA,” since it seems that most of the things that get a line here are subway-related. That’s true as ever this week. Punch, Pepper-Spray, Hardware and High School are all, in their myriad and sundry ways, subway stories. So, step in, stand clear of the closing doors. Continue reading →
A rendering of the proposed L-ternative Pontoon Bridge, via Kickstarter
L-pocalypse looms just a year away, and the MTA doesn’t appear particularly interested in dealing with it, so New York residents have taken up the mantel of transit vigilantism, and moved forward with plans of their own. Last month Parker Shinn took to Kickstarter to drum up community support for an “L-ternative” Pontoon Bridge, which would run across the East River from North 8th Street in Williamsburg to East 10th Street in Manhattan. The Bridge would support 2 lanes of bus traffic, two lanes of bike traffic and command a $1 toll. It would also connect commuters to the Bedford Avenue L-train, and crosstown bus service along 14th street. Continue reading →
Speaking of money and real estate, no plan has merged those two things this week quite as well as the new design for Dime Savings Bank of Williamsburgh.The building at south 5th and Havemeyer will be refurbished and a new 22-story residential tower will rise beside it. Thirty percent of the apartments in the new building will be let at affordable prices. At the same time, the Landmarks Preservation Commission is holding hearings to decide whether or not to designate the bank building a historic landmark. Continue reading →
As the MTA’s planned 15-month suspension of L train service between Brooklyn and Manhattan draws near, all 200,000 daily riders of the L-pocalypse have been asking the same question: how will we get across the river? Brooklynites have been asking that question for generations, and personal ingenuity, along with municipal planning, has yielded several answers. All we can say for sure is that this is not the first time aggrieved Greenpointers have been up in arms over inadequate inter-borough transit. I’m just glad we don’t have to take a rowboat.
The rowboat commute was the first in a line increasingly efficient methods of getting from Greenpoint to Manhattan that includes horsecars, trollies, ferry services, elevated trains, and the dawn and growth of the subway. Step in, stand clear and read on for a history of transit in North Brooklyn. Continue reading →
The MTA has seen protests in Brooklyn due to its laissez-faire relationship with the impending L-pocalypse. In response, they’ve promised to make community engagement a “central priority” as the March 2019 L train closure nears. Part of that community engagement was on display last week, when the MTA and the DOT appeared before Brooklyn Community Board 1 to offer a joint presentation to this neighborhood offering new information regarding their plans for alternate service during the transit shutdown. In a word: Ferries.
While the proposed direct ferry route between North Williamsburg and Stuyvesant Cove isn’t technically new (it was part of the MTA’s original L-pocalypse mitigation strategy ominously entitled Planning Ahead for the Crisis), the agency offered new details on the route at last week’s meeting. During the presentation, transit honchos noted that ferry service along the route would run 6:00am-12:00am Sunday through Thursday, and that service may be extended until 2:00 am on Friday and Saturday nights. Continue reading →
The DOT is continuing its community outreach by holding meetings open to the public, so folks can ask questions, make comments and raise fists about the upcoming L train shutdown, aka L-Pocalypse, aka The End Times happening starting in April 2019. Tonight you can attend the third in the series of meetings, held at the Williamsburg Community Center (195 Graham Ave), from 5-8pm—you can feel free to arrive at any point during the meeting. Continue reading →
