SHEEPSHEAD BAY'S ONLY INDEPENDENT NEWS BLOG

The Parks Department planted approximately two dozen new trees along Emmons Avenue west of Ocean Avenue this week, as the city moves to complete the final phase of a decade-long rehabilitation of the waterfront.

The $460,000 project, funded by Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz, will continue throughout the spring. On the checklist for beautification are:

• repaired sidewalks
• covered trash bins
• new trees, with granite block pavement in enlarged tree pits
• new curb cuts
• fresh paint on the Bay’s railing
• blue concrete and matching artistic design elements previously installed near the piers, from Ocean Avenue to East 27th Street
• 1964 World’s Fair-style benches

When construction is finished, the Emmons Avenue street-scape will have seen a complete overhaul over the last decade. Repairs began in 2003, when the city installed new antique-style lights along Emmons Avenue and Shore Boulevard. In 2006, the city completed a similar renovation to the current one, from Ocean Avenue to East 27th Street, adding new benches, sidewalk designs, tree pits and more.

Cymbrowitz, in a press release, said that the improvements will help the community continue to recover from Superstorm Sandy.

“Beautifying Emmons Avenue is part of the larger mechanism of long-term recovery,” Cymbrowitz said. “Trees represent new life. They’re meant to last, and so is Sheepshead Bay.”

BYLAWS REVISED: After taking heat from a group of neighbors upset about a drug treatment facility proposed for Kings Highway, Community Board 15 voted to revise a section of their bylaws that would require more intense community outreach in the run-up to a hearing for similar facilities in the future.

Continue Reading »

Built for expansion: This owner of this Beaumont Street home violated the terms of their special application, so they tore down their home and rebuilt this structure so they could apply again. (Source: CB15)

“Bullet Points” is our format for Community Board 15 meeting coverage, providing takeaways we think are important. Information in Bullet Points is meant only to be a quick summary, and some issues may be more deeply explored in future articles.

Enlargement denied: Community Board 15 said a Manhattan Beach homeowner’s request to expand his home would set a bad precedent after learning that the homeowner previously dodged zoning laws, got caught, tore down his home and rebuilt it – all to try for the permit for a second time.

Owners of the home at 282 Beaumont Street, one house in from the water, sought to expand their two-story home by adding a third story, bulking out the building in the front and the rear, and doubling the floor area allowed by zoning standards. But, during questioning at the public hearing, Community Board members expressed concern that the homeowner had previously got caught dodging zoning, and rebuilt a shoddy house with the intention of coming before the Board for a new application.

“Since [violating zoning laws and having the permits revoked,] the owners constructed a new home that appears to be purposely built to be destroyed,” said neighbor Samuel Falack, who lives on the block and also spoke on behalf of the Manhattan Beach Community Group. “It has a shabbily built second floor and a flat roof that has pipes leading to what they hope will be an attic or a third floor with the expectation that a second special permit will be granted.”

Falack called the application disingenuous, and urged the Board to oppose it.

Keep reading to find out what happened, and other information from the Community Board 15 meeting.

Photo by Erica Sherman

It has been a rumor for as long as I’ve been alive that El Greco, the Sheepshead Bay staple, is for sale, sold, closing, moving, evaporating, burning, building, growing, shrinking and whatever else. Well, for once, one of those is actually true. El Greco, recently named one of the city’s best diners by Gothamist, has put the land it sits on up for sale.

Continue Reading »

Resorts World Casino at the Aquaduct, in Queens. (Source: NYCGO)

Opponents of a Coney Island casino can breathe a little easier today, knowing that Governor Andrew Cuomo has scaled back his support for casino gambling in New York, and is ruling it out entirely in New York City.

During his State of the State address yesterday, New York’s chief executive said the state should begin with only three full-scale casinos – not seven, as is currently being considered by the legislature – and that all three be established upstate.

“We propose a casino plan to boost upstate development,” Cuomo said. “I believe casinos in upstate New York could be a great magnet to bring the New York City traffic up. They now go to New Jersey, they go to Connecticut – why don’t we bring them to upstate New York?”

Continue Reading »

Flavorpill published this great piece yesterday, listing some of the worst development ideas for New York City that never materialized. One of them was this nifty little amusement park, a Coney Island on the islands of Jamaica Bay, and boasting a Venetian theme.

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

Apparently, in the years around 1910 the government was spending boatloads of money “erecting piers around the shores of this great natural harbor,” the blurb above the caption states. “It has been suggested that the numerous low, marshy islands in the centre of the bay will not be required for commerce for half a century at least.”

And, shoot, if no one else is using it other than some pesky birds, fish and other wildlife, why the heck not turn it into an opulent resort and amusement park, a la Coney Island?

That was the thinking of these planners, who envisioned “something like a modern New Word Venice, at a cost not at all prohibitory.”

At least according to the illustration, the plan would have built up a dozen or so of the marsh islands, connecting them with footbridges and spurring what I assume is the world’s second largest gondola industry. And, hey, two or three phallic structures just for the heck of it.

Have we mentioned that many of these islands have eroded away over the last 100 years, and the Army Corps of Engineers is routinely shoring them up for both coastal storm protection and wildlife habitat?

I can’t help but wonder what Sandy would’ve done to something like this if it was built.

Our friend Dan Hendrick was the first to point it out to us on Twitter:

So glad this plan for #Jamaica Bay never materialized! bit.ly/Wr5Kh5 @gatewaynps @sheepsheadbites @jamaicabaywatch @rockawayist

— Dan Hendrick (@JamaicaBayLives) January 8, 2013

But, you know what? Hendrick might be glad the plan never materialized, but I think the environmentalist in him should see the benefits this would have brought.

For example, I doubt they’d put a natural gas pipeline and metering station in an amusement park…

Images via Chronicling America

Source: CDM via the New York Daily News

It would cost upwards of $10 billion and take nearly a decade to build, but politicians, engineers, and average citizens are starting to dream big when it comes to protecting New York City’s coastline from another storm surge disaster.

A New York Daily News report is citing growing interest in plans to invest in a massive billion dollar seascape project meant to push back the types of surging sea swells that caused $42 billion dollars in damage after Hurricane Sandy struck.

The types of projects dreamed up include a 5-mile-long and 80-foot-high rock barrier reaching from Breezy Point, Queens to Sandy Hook, N.J., a massive 1,700-foot wall stretching across the Arthur Kill and a huge structure in the shadow of the Verrazano Bridge that features two identical 640-foot-high gates.

In recent years, support for ambitions architectural super-projects such as these would have met stiff opposition from politicians and taxpayers alike. More than likely, they would be unwilling to invest the vast resources required to prevent a scenario they could scarcely envision.

The reality of Sandy is changing these attitudes.

Despite the enormous cost and ingenuity required to erect a seascape structure, they aren’t long term solutions, as oceans will continue to rise ever higher in the coming centuries. Still, they have proven effective in countries like England and the Netherlands, where massive seawalls have prevented billions in flood damage since their construction.

While enthusiasm is running high right now for bold action, time will prove to be the number one obstacle in seeing such projects to completion. As New York recovers from Sandy’s destruction and is lucky enough to spared of another major storm in the coming years, people’s desire for a long term solution will wane.

The Daily News quoted engineer Larry Murphy who recalled the devastation caused by the 1938 “killer cane” which killed 700 New Yorkers and left 63,000 homeless.

He says, “There’s a tremendous amount of damage, but maybe it wasn’t bad enough. Look at the ’38 hurricane. If that hit today, there would be no question about building that barrier.”

Source: Brocken Inaglory via Wikimedia Commons

On July 9, more than 700 Canada Geese were rounded up and killed at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. Instead of dumping the dead geese into landfills, the meat from the birds was donated to food pantries and soup kitchens in New York.

Normally, the birds are gassed by carbon dioxide, making them unfit for eating. However, this year, officials decided to donate the meat to the needy. According to Carol Bannerman, a USDA Wildlife Services spokeswoman, goose meat is not an uncommon protein. In New York State, big game hunters donate their catch to those in need regularly.

Last year, the geese that were caught were donated to food charities in Pennsylvania.

Don Riepe was there the day the geese were culled.

“They did it as humanely as possible,” he said to Capital New York. “They rounded them up and put them in individual crates, like you transport any live product.”

After the geese were caught, they were taken to a meat processor in upstate New York on the same day.

The packaged wild goose meat was processed and labeled with a health advisory before it was sent out to shelters. The label stated that the New York State Department of Health recommended “no more than two meals of the wild geese per month because they may have been exposed to environmental contaminants.”

However, reps from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said that the meat was tested and posed no real concern to humans.

Others disagree. Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, believes that the meat from near the airport is not safe for consumption.

“When airplanes take off they spray jet fuel and when they land they release jet fuel,” he said. “So do they really want that type of meat?”

Jean Grassman, a Brooklyn College professor of Health and Nutrition Sciences, said an urban contaminant called polychlorinated biphenyl, or PCB, may be a real risk for people.

“The concern is that they’re developmental toxicants,” Grassman stated. “The issue of contamination is a real possibility in wild fowl.”

Further, there is another concern pertaining to contamination of the goose meat. According to Jeanne Wilcox at the Food Bank for Westchester, “There was a possibility that the meat had birdshot — a type of shotgun shell, which could contain lead… anyone eating the meat should keep an eye out for shells while cutting it.”

On the whole, food banks don’t seem too skeptical when receiving game meat donations.

Peter Braglia from Long Island Cares said, “People don’t understand wild game is so much more nutritious than what you can buy in the store. There’s no hormones given to these birds.”

Source: Koonisutra/Flickr

Proving that resistance is not futile, the All-American Ultra-Chain, Walmart, has retreated from efforts to plant its flag in East New York.

Since at least 2007, Walmart has been paving the way for an invasion of Brooklyn’s Gateway II shopping center. Local activists claimed America’s largest retailer would hurt local businesses, a position bolstered by research in Chicago. Drivers, meanwhile, bemoaned what a Walmart on the Belt Parkway would do to traffic congestion, and union activists slammed it for what they said were anti-union practices. And the corporate behemoth raised eyebrows when they donated millions of dollars to help fund local politician’s pet projects to gain political support.

Now the opponents seem to have emerged victorious, and Walmart is backing off its claim to Gateway.

Walmart last week issued a boilerplate statement stating, “We were unable to agree upon economic terms for a project in East New York.”

The release left open the possibility that the mega-chain will one day set roots in New York City.

“We remain committed to bringing new economic development and shopping options to New York City,” the release said.

No new locations of interest have been announced by the company.

Source: Commercial Acquisitions

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: After more than 30 years serving the community, Brighton Beach’s Met Foods supermarket at 100-120 Brighton Beach Avenue will close down to make way for a modern two-story office and retail complex.

The supermarket lost its lease to the building to a new tenant who plans to redevelop the property and sublet it out, Arsen Atbashyan, the owner of Commercial Acquisitions, which brokered the lease, told Sheepshead Bites.

Atbashyan negotiated a 49-year land lease, signed near the end of 2011, that gives the developer rights to construct a two-story building on an 18,000-square-foot footprint, with 30,000 square feet of retail and office space available.

Atbashyan said he’s expecting to sign some big brand names as tenants.

“We are currently in the process of just starting the marketing process and at this time no tenants are on the hook,” he told Sheepshead Bites. “But we do expect national tenants to come on board as the marketing goes on.”

Keep reading to find out more, and view other renderings of the new development.