The city will host a BQX information session tomorrow in Williamsburg in its second push to bring an streetcar near the waterfront from Astoria, Queens to Red Hook, Brooklyn
A new BQX website debuted in January as Mayor de Blasio and city’s Economic Development Corporation renewed the push for the transportation project with a series of public workshops.
The community workshops are meant to give the public the chance to “learn about and discuss the BQX planning work that’s been done to date, and the process moving forward.”
The Environmental Protection Agency has extended the public comment deadline to Febraury 28th on the proposed control plan to partially reduce combined sewage overflow into the Newtown Creek superfund site and will present more info on the plan at a public meeting in Queens on Wednesday night.
A protected pedestrian lane of the Pulaski Bridge. (Image courtesy of Taylor Bingham)
A driver of a Honda Accord abandoned his car after getting the car stuck in the protected pedestrian lane of the Pulaski Bridge early Thursday morning.
The NYPD responded to the scene at around 3 a.m. and it took hours for the Emergency Service Unit to remove the car via partial demolition and the use of a tow truck, ABC7 reports. Continue reading →
A Queens community board reversed its opposition to a new proposal for 5Pointz Towers — a luxury complex planned at the site of a famed former Long Island City street art mecca — thanks, in part, to a library. Continue reading →
The heavy rain that poured down on NYC yesterday sparked a flash flood warning and caused flooding in Greenpoint and Long Island city affecting commuters.
The portion of India Street leading up to the pier and NYC ferry entrance was covered in water and flooded the vehicles parked on the street.
A large patch of the poison ivy plant has been the source of 311 complaints on an MTA-owned lot near the Pulaski Bridge, Gothamist reports.
The poison ivy plant has reportedly been spotted throughout our urban jungle this season, which may be a result of mild winters.
The specific patch of poison ivy causing a stir near the much-traveled Pulaski Bridge is “right off Jackson Avenue and is now encroaching onto the sidewalk,” in Long Island City.” More from Gothamist: Continue reading →
MoMA PS1 in Long Island City will kick off its “Warm Up” summer music series on Saturday, July 6th, with music performances in the museum’s courtyard alongside art installations.
Pedro & Juana’s Hórama Rama (courtesy of MoMA PS1/Rafael Gamo)
The art installation in the MoMA PS1 courtyard this year features a 40-foot-tall, 90-foot-wide “immersive junglescape,” the work of architects Pedro and Juana who are Mexico-based.
The developers who whitewashed the street art at the legendary Queens graffiti hotspot 5Pointz want to paint over bad feelings and lure artists back to the site.
The owners are vying to capitalize on the Long Island City property’s colorful history — replacing the once-art bedecked warehouse complex with a luxury apartment development dubbed 5Pointz Towers.
“It’s hard when you get bashed in the papers, but we’ve always been pro-artist and we always wanted artists and we would love to have some of the artists that were at the building before to come back again,” said David Wolkoff, who co-owns the complex with his father, Gerald. “That’s up to them. I would love to speak to them.”
In November 2013, before the warehouse complex’s demolition, painters erased the work of thousands of international street artists who had decorated the ever-changing building.
That spurred some artists to file a federal lawsuit in Brooklyn. In February 2018, a judge ruled in their favor and ordered the developers to pay $6.7 million in damages. The Wolkoffs appealed the decision and are awaiting a court date.
The planned 5Pointz development in Long Island City. Photo: Rendering by HTO Architect
David Wolkoff said the name of the 1,122-unit development was picked because “that was what the site has been for…years.” A promotional website is littered with renderings of people leisurely strolling in verdant open space, bordered by street-art murals.
“We really enjoyed the work they placed on the walls previously. We have always enjoyed it. If we didn’t, we would not have allowed it to happen,” Wolkoff told THE CITY. “For 20 some-odd years, longer than that, we were always planning on building a big building.” Continue reading →
Just across Newtown Creek in Long Island City stood an abandoned industrial site that many considered the world’s greatest treasury of graffiti art. Tragically demolished in 2013, the world-famous Five Pointz consisted of twelve factory buildings ranging in height from a single story to five floors. The name Five Pointz referred both to the five boroughs of New York City and to the notorious 19th century Manhattan slum of the same name. Five Pointz grew so famous that tourists from around the world journeyed to Long Island City to photograph the amazing examples of graffiti art that adorned its many exterior walls, but the famous complex would not have a long life and would die a tragic death.
(courtesy of Jules Antonio/Flickr)
Located at 45–46 Davis Street, the buildings, which were constructed in 1892, once housed a water meter factory, but the water meter plant was long by the early 1970s when developer Jerry Wolkoff bought the abandoned factory and leased space inside to industrial firms. In 1990, hungry for new tenants, Wolkoff granted permission for artists to cover the exterior walls with art and by the 1990s artists attracted to the area by the low rents began to rent interior spaces in the building. Soon, aerosol artists began to cover the exterior walls with their colorful and creative murals. Initially called the Phun Factory, the building was renamed “5 Pointz” in 2002 when graffiti artist Jonathan Cohen began curating the exterior murals. The murals’ fame spread and Cohen even conceived plans to turn the huge complex into a museum of graffiti art. The former industrial complex attracted elite aerosol artists who arrived from all over the United States and even around the world, including famous graffiti artists such as Stay High 149, Tracy 168, Part, SPE, Dan Plasma, CORTES and TATS CRU.
The tags at Five Points (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
While Five Pointz fame was spreading around the globe, Long Island City was also changing. Due to its proximity to Manhattan, the area started to become a magnet for high-rise residential towers and Wolkoff became increasingly aware of his site’s multi-million dollar real estate value.
