Finally, A Park Grows in Brooklyn's Last Industrial Pocket
The gritty, inaccessible waterfront of Sunset Park is one of Brooklyn's last industrial strongholds, its cobblestone streets lined with active train tracks, its shoreline home to fenced off warehouses and piers. But the neighborhood is currently being transformed by several large-scale redevelopment projects, spurred on by a plan created in 2009 by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC). New businesses and higher rents have brought a different demographic to Industry City, while the Brooklyn Army Terminal continues to remake its campus and is beginning a new $100 million renovationproject this year. Sandwiched between these burgeoning complexes, on a series of formerly abandoned piers behind Bush Terminal, a rare bit of green space recently opened to the public, offering nearby residents access to their waterfront for the very first time.
100-Yr-Old Chocolate Factory, Once A Victim Of Gentrification, Now Accused Of Gentrifying Brooklyn
Gentrification is a vicious, if potentially economically beneficial cycle that spares no one, not even those who create Earth's most delicious substance. So was the lesson learned by one nearly-century old chocolate factory, which was pushed out of its home on Christopher Street about a decade ago and found new digs in Sunset Park. But the tables have turned, and apparently neighbors are worried the new factory is making their area more attractive to the Whole-Foods-and-Bugaboo set. Will it never end?
Bush Terminal Piers Park opens
Former landfill rehabilitated with $40 million in federal, state, city funds
By Paula Katinas
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Brooklyn has a brand new waterfront park.
City officials and Sunset Park residents came together Wednesday afternoon to celebrate the grand opening of Bush Terminal Piers Park, a 23-acre recreation area located on the waterfront behind Bush Terminal.
Assemblymember Felix Ortiz and Councilmember Carlos Menchaca, both of whom represent Sunset Park, were among the officials taking part in a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Officials from the Parks Department and the city’s Economic Development Corporation were also on hand.
“Today, we unite to host a ceremonial ribbon-cutting to celebrate the opening of this long-awaited community space. This afternoon we honor the advocacy and visioning on the part of our community,” Menchaca said in a statement on Wednesday.
The park, which contains two ball fields, open recreation space, a pier and rest rooms made from old shipping containers, extends along First Avenue from 43rd Street to 51st Street. The entrance is located on First Avenue and 43rd Street.
The park actually opened last week, but a grand opening ceremony was put off until Nov. 12.
Bush Terminal Piers Park sits at the site of a former landfill. The park was created with $40 million in federal, state and city funds that were used for both the cleanup of the toxic dump site and the construction of the recreation area.
U.S. Rep. Nydia Velazquez, whose district includes Sunset Park, was instrumental in securing much of the federal funding, according to Menchaca.
But Menchaca also credited Sunset Park residents and environmental groups with the creation of the park, saying that their efforts to push government officials to open up the waterfront for recreational use paid off. “Over the many years, local justice organizations like UPROSE fueled this fight by providing people power consisting mostly of youth who dared to imagine a different future for our waterfront,” he stated.
UPROSE, which stands for United Puerto Rican Organizations of Sunset Park, advocates for better environmental conditions for the community.
“Elected officials like Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez secured substantial federal funding, and others like Assemblyman Felix Ortiz and Councilmember Sara Gonzalez stood alongside so many invested Sunset Park neighbors who, despite the many challenges, never wavered in their demand to the open our waterfront for public and recreational use,” Menchaca said. Gonzalez was Menchaca’s predecessor in the council.
“We are going to celebrate the opening, which we’ve been after for decades,” Tony Giordano, president of the group Sunset Park Restoration, told the New York Daily News.
The Parks Department’s website describes Bush Terminal Piers Park as “a lovely waterfront park with spectacular views of the area’s tidal pools and the Bay Ridge Channel.”
People who visit the park “will find two multi-purpose soccer and baseball fields as well as a nature preserve that allows a fun glimpse into Brooklyn’s wild side,” the website reads.
The park is open from 8 p.m. to 4 p.m. seven days a week. From May 2 to Sept. 30, it will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
When environmental activists march in New York, look for immigrants at the head of the parade
On Sunday, people from across the country and around the world will converge at a corner of Central Park in New York City.
They'll be taking part in the People’s Climate March, which organizers hope will be the biggest gathering in history to focus on global climate change. They want to grab the attention of the world leaders who are gathering in the city a few days later for a climate summit at the UN.
The organizers also hope those leaders will notice new faces among the marchers, including the faces of immigrants.
At an art space in North Brooklyn, Sonia Guinansaca and Susana Garcia are plastering images of a few of these faces onto cardboard to display in Sunday’s march. They’re with a group called CultureStrike, which focuses on art and immigrant activism.
Guinansaca, who is from Ecuador, says environmentalism comes naturally for immigrants like her. “Migrant communities, communities of color, have always been green — before green was cool,” she says.
Reducing, reusing, and recycling — she says these are things they do culturally and out of necessity. But worrying about climate change is something new for many of the immigrants who’ll be at the head of Sunday’s march.
“It was really Typhoon Haiyan, that’s the first time we as a group mentioned climate change,” says Terri Nilliasca, who will be marching with the Filipino organization Damayan Migrant Workers Association. The group provides assistance to trafficked Filipino domestic workers. When the massive typhoon hit the Philippines last November, killing thousands and displacing millions, its members became climate change activists, too.
"All of us here were watching it helplessly,” she says. “Watching that happen ... made us really think this is something we need to be involved in."
And, of course, immigrant communities in and around New York have had reminders of climate change hit much closer to home. “[Hurricane] Sandy a couple years ago was a wakeup call for a lot of folks in the community,” says Ryan Chavez, a member of UPROSE, a climate justice group in the heavily immigrant Brookyln neighborhood of Sunset Park.
The area is right at the water's edge and suffered heavy flooding damage. So after Sandy hit the city, UPROSE started organizing blocks to respond to the next big storm and look for local ways to help slow climate change — things like green roofs and alternative energy. UPROSE is among a handful of groups that helped plan Sunday’s march.
Other immigrants who will be marching Sunday offer a whole different way of thinking about our relationship to the Earth. “We consider Mother Earth as goddess,” says Dr. Uma Mysorekar, President of the Hindu Temple Society of North America, in Flushing, Queens.
“First thing in the morning, when we all get up, we touch our hands to the floor ... that is Earth — and we ask for forgiveness that we put our feet on her," Mysorekar says. "And at the end of the day, we thank her for having taken us through this and bearing our weight and giving us what we need.”
With such a big-tent approach, immigrants involved in this weekend’s climate action bring a number of agendas and goals. But UPROSE's Chavez says boosting the numbers of immigrants involved in climate change issues is an important goal in itself.
“Traditionally, the environmental movement has really been led by folks of more privilege and status,” Chavez says. “The fact that the march is going to be led by frontline communities, by indigenous communities, by low-income communities and communities of color, is going to represent a huge shift in how the climate movement will be viewed.”
In a way, it’s about making the climate change message about people, not just about the weather.
Of course, the two are intimately linked, and immigrants will be in the eye of the storms ahead. The International Organization for Migration has estimated that environmental changes could force up to a billion people to migrate in the next 40 years.
That could turn still more immigrants into climate activists, just as it did for Sonia Guinansaca. She says her family left Ecuador because their crops were failing.
“They decided to come here to New York to make a living,” Guinansaca says. "And as someone who’s undocumented, the idea of home and taking care of the planet is something that’s really close for me, because everything is home for me.”
At this year’s big climate rally, most of the people won’t be pale, male, and stale
More than 500 organizations are planning a historic event for Sept. 21 in New York City, what they say will be the largest rally for climate action ever. Organizers and ralliers will be calling on world leaders to craft a new international climate treaty, two days before those leaders will convene at a Climate Summit at the United Nations headquarters. Jamie Henn, spokesperson for 350.org, the main convener of the event, declined to offer a precise target for turnout, but the current holder of the largest-climate-rally title, a February 2012 march on the White House, drew around 50,000 people, so organizers are expecting more than that — possibly significantly more.
People's Climate March—Largest Climate March in World History—Launched in Times Square
A spirited press conference in Times Square today launched the People's Climate March, the largest climate action in world history.
Scheduled for Sept. 21 in New York City, the People’s Climate March will coincide with September’s UN Climate Summit, where world leaders including President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping will be in attendance in answer to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon summons to consult on climate change.
Key organizations, representing hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and millions nationwide, hosted the press conference today to explain the goals of the mobilization and to share expectations for the UN summit. Representatives from New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, Sierra Club, 350.org, UPROSE and a number of local unions were there, as well as faith leaders, speakers from superstorm Sandy-impacted communities and millennials.
"The voice of youth is crucial in the People's Climate March," said Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of UPROSE. "They are the first and last generation that can make a difference in this global crisis. We have to work inter-generationally to build momentum for frontline communities and provide our people with the resources to address this complex issue."
With our future on the line and the whole world watching, we’ll take a stand to bend the course of history. We’ll take to the streets to demand the world we know is within our reach: a world with an economy that works for people and the planet; a world safe from the ravages of climate change; a world with good jobs, clean air and water, and healthy communities.
"To the untrained eye, this looks like an alliance of unusual bedfellows—labor joining hands with faith joining hands with national environmental groups," said Eddie Bautista, executive director of New York City Environmental Justice Alliance. "But the idea that there is choice between environment and economy is a dated paradigm. The climate change march is not about slicing and dicing a political agenda—it's a big tent. We invite all with an interest in the future.”
Key organizations, representing hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and millions nationwide, hosted the press conference today. Photo credit: Sierra Club
Bill McKibben, 350.org founder, hopes you'll be there. In an EcoWatch blogpost he said, "We need to show just how big and unified our movement has grown, from the environmental justice advocates fighting fossil fuel pollution in our communities to the students demanding divestment on our campuses, from the scientists who have seen their warnings so far ignored to the clergy now showing real moral leadership.
If you’re wondering how to react to the devastating news that the Antarctic is melting out of control: New York. If you’re scared like I am by the pictures of the fire and drought across the West: New York. If you’re feeling like it’s time to change the trajectory of this planet: we’ll see you in New York."
The People's Climate March will highlight the climate crisis and the need to act now with bold solutions. More than 500 organizations—from community and labor groups to international NGOs and faith organizations—around the world have joined to organize or endorse the event. They describe the motivation for the march as follows: