Red Hook Stevedores Get a 10-Year Lease
It’s official: The Port Authority and American Stevedoring Inc. have agreed to a $41 million, 10-year lease that will allow the stevedores to continue operating Piers 7 through 10 in Red Hook. The deal means the city’s plans to redevelop the piers with housing and restaurants is kaput. “We saved the Brooklyn port,” Congressman Jerrold…
It’s official: The Port Authority and American Stevedoring Inc. have agreed to a $41 million, 10-year lease that will allow the stevedores to continue operating Piers 7 through 10 in Red Hook. The deal means the city’s plans to redevelop the piers with housing and restaurants is kaput. “We saved the Brooklyn port,” Congressman Jerrold L. Nadler told the Times. “This is a great day for jobs in Brooklyn and for the future of maritime commerce on this side of the river. No one can turn it into a condo anymore.”
Lease Ends Uncertainty for Red Hook Cargo Docks [NY Times]
Red Hook Dock Union Triumphs [NY Post]
Red Hook Containerport to Stay [Brownstoner]
Photo by lj lindhurst.
Thanks to Christine Quinn too, who spoke out in favor of ASI after receiving “donations” from them – but we all know she’s got the highest of ethical standards. The pols didn’t even want to open the site up for tender for a more suitable stevedoring operation – it was ASI or nothing. Makes you wonder who’s interests they were protecting. Yep, it was all about jobs – all 67 of them – even though they could have been preserved in the Sunset Park location. And what of the jobs that would have come from Brooklyn Brewery’s relocation, or the expanded Water Taxi operation, or the extra Cruise Terminal (small as they may have been), and whatever else may have been there? I guess they don’t count. There were no lux condos in the EDC’s plans for this site, initially just housing on the west side of Columbia Street. The residents close to them didn’t like that idea so shot down those plans -I guess they prefer looking out to walls of containers and ships spewing noxious diesel into their air.
There were no concessions given by ASI to improve their operation as a condition of this lease – no commitment to use “cold ironing” – so ships don’t have to idle in port spewing noxious diesel – no installation of radiation detectors or increase container inspection because of the high risk this location has due to its proximity to Lower Manhattan – no trade off to allow a truck route through Conover street to alleviate the problem with truck traffic on Van Brunt.
The bottom line is this was the wrong place to keep such a terminal. If ASI supporters really want to make this location work, they need to advocate for the demolition of all the residential land between the waterfront and Prospect Park. That would give the terminal the upland capacity of Port Elizabeth, NJ, and allow it to operate efficiently. Anything else is a joke – one at the expense of the families of Brooklyn who were hoping for improvements in their quality of life.
The same people that want to chase out the working waterfront for housing also want to down zone the neighborhoods. Give it a break.
This is a shame. I support having a working waterfront in Brooklyn, but not ASI, not in Red Hook.
Firstly, having a working pier like this in Red Hook is simply inefficient. There’s not enough upland storage and terribly narrow streets make it impossible for trucks to reach the pier. You know what that means? Ships that could have more easily been unloaded in Port Newark dock at Red Hook, where they’re unloaded, and the cargo is then barged across to (you guessed it!) Port Newark, where they can be put on trucks with easy highway access. It’s a foolish setup that could have easily been moved to Sunset park.
Also, ASI has not paid rent in years. Years! They’ve essentially been squatting on public property. and most of they’re employees are union guys from LI and NJ – so don’t give me the whole “keeping good jobs in NYC for low-income folks” argument.
Nadler just wanted to be seen as protecting industrial jobs in the city, regardless of whether it makes sense in this case or not. If the operation was moved further south, we could’ve kept these jobs and had more housing and other retail, etc jobs as well.
Person of CG and CH, what would consider good development as opposed to a shipyard? If you lived in Red Hook as I do, you would see the blight that Fairway and now Ikea have brought under the guise of good development. American Stevedoring has a far lower impact on the neighborhood in terms of pollution and traffic, while preserving at least a vestige of the industry that supported RH for 120 years. Must we all become shoppers and box-store clerks? -JD
People not from the are have no idea that Pier 7 to 10 runs from Atlantic south to the Battery Tunnel. This is all primarily residences and commercial property. This is not a shipping area anymore. They should have moved to Sunset Terminal which has better access for trucks and is not fully utilized as shipping terminal. Stevedoring was saved by a few connected politicos. Great they protected a few good blue collar jobs held primarily by some hard working people and mostly mob guys, that supposedly clock in. This was an area where good development could have happened. The war is not over, check back in 10 years when everyone stops getting payoffs and gets a clue.
–People of Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill and Red Hook.
They’ll just build housing in 10 years when the economy is better.
A victory for the maritime community. Hooray!
Put a few bucks in Jerry’s pocket and he’ll be a man of what ever you want him to be.
10.23: houses without jobs – doesn’t work. see e.g. Buffalo.