US Concrete, Red Hook's New Resident
Red Hook residents have been distressed for a couple months now over the planned arrival of US Concrete to their neighborhood. Although Red Hook was historically a center of industry, and once considered one of the worst neighborhoods in the city, the neighborhood has greatly changed over the past ten years (duh). Now, residents fear…
Red Hook residents have been distressed for a couple months now over the planned arrival of US Concrete to their neighborhood. Although Red Hook was historically a center of industry, and once considered one of the worst neighborhoods in the city, the neighborhood has greatly changed over the past ten years (duh). Now, residents fear that the new concrete factory will disrupt the balance they fought to create, reports the Brooklyn Paper: they worry about traffic, noise and pollution from trucks, dust from the factory, and its proximity to a community farm, Red Hook Park, and Ikea’s waterfront park. The area’s democratic councilwoman, Sara Gonzalez, held a summit meeting for residents and company representatives last Thursday, but so far, it looks like US Concrete will go forward with its plan.
Concrete Plant Plan Is a Real Red Hook Dust Up [Brooklyn Paper]
Residents Upset over Location of Concrete Plant [NY Daily News]
Photo by sgoodyear
While as a Red Hook resident, I’m not thrilled about a concrete plant, I don’t buy the gloom and doom that my neighbors claim it will bring as it’s pretty far away from the residential area. Moreover, I find it a bit disingenuous when the people that are complaining the most about traffic and air pollution, are the very same people that drive the most in the community.
Also, combustiblegirl2, please verify your claim that Red Hook has the worst air pollution and highest asthma in the city. is that just anecdotal or do you have some hard datum. I’ve heard that stat before and I’m wondering if it hyperbole on the part of the NIMBYs or true.
Sorry- this city needs industry and jobs. I do understand the RH residents are concerned but this a working neighborhood until it started getting gentrified not all that long ago. And being in the “brownstone belt” doesn’t really mean that much- they want to put up AY and that environmental impact study was a total sham. If in fact they ever really did one. The reality is no neighborhood in NYC is completely environmentally safe. You live in a city, you are not breathing in the sylvan air of the mountains.
Nothing personal here; this comment is not directed at anyone in particular, merely at the subject of this graving dock that comes up with some regularity.
The graving dock thing is talked about all the time but I’m not so sure the graving dock thing isn’t just a bit of a red herring or convenient illusion, in the end.
For example, if a new graving dock were proposed in the neighborhood today, how many there would protest it for these same reasons of pollution and truck traffic, heavy industrial chemicals etc?
Also, I was left with the impression that this was an old, out-of-use drydock. Certainly not up to today’s pollution containment standards.
So who is to say that it amounted to little more than just a hole in the ground, and would have had to be entirely re-constructed according to current environmental standards?
And is there an assumption there that retro-fitting an old graving dock would be cheaper than new construction? No idea if that’s the case.
Was its infrastructure even efficient and desirable for the way things are done in shipyards these days?
In all seriousness…would the neighborhood not have protested its reopening?
It’s interesting to me that the same people who criticize Red Hook residents for worrying about truck traffic and its attendant issues (air pollution, building damage) cry foul if a condo development in their neighborhood is too tall. There’s a lot going on behind the residents concerns here but as usual the commenters on this thread discuss the issues in the most reductive and uninformed matter. If a concrete plant were to be sited in their neighborhood *without and environmental impact study*–which is what’s happening here–I can imagine the clamor it would create. And as for IKEA, the thing that gets overlooked constantly when commenters want to slam the residents for their protests about the development was the historic, still working, civil war era graving dock (so we’re talking something of cultural, historic, and economic merit) was filled in to make a parking lot. A parking lot that beyond the initial opening is *never* even close to filled to capacity. That in fact is at best half full on the weekends. But IKEA and the city said f-you to the neighborhood. And then a week after the IKEA opened the city released a study that said we’re short on drydocks and that it would cost a billion dollars to build a new one . . . And you wonder why the residents are cautious and vociferous about new development here. Because we’re not in the brownstone belt we’re just supposed to suck it up and take whatever is throw at us. Well next to the South Bronx, Red Hook has some of the worst air pollution and highest asthma rates in the city and I think that gives the residents a right to be concerned about how any new industry will effect that.
Interesting clarifications, perhaps the term “Erie Basin” is generational? My next door nieghbors, a couple who are are approaching 90 years of age, occasionally will drive to Fairway to buy groceries. I have heard them say..”We are going to the Fairway at Erie Basin…” They never say they are going to Red Hook…As for the proposed facility, hopefully it will provide needed jobs for residents in the area.
Memorable day – I’ve agreed w/ Benson on two topics!
Wow- this must be the first time a b’stoner thread has had a real consensus on anything! Benson- you are totally right. I’m happy industry is coming back to Red Hook (or actually anywhere in NYC). I think its a big mistake to have conceived as NYC as a strictly residential luxury condo only sort of place but it seems that that’s exactly what City Planning has been doing for quite some time now. Finally reality is setting in- I was really happy to read about the new RH plan a few months ago.
Benson – were they shipping American Midwest Wheat via these oceanliners to Europe/Asia and Africa back in the 50’s??
Ahh Nimbism – it is rare when you get to see the hypocrisy of its proponents (and of course deniers of being NIMBY) being so glaringly displayed….
Lets see if I can see the life cycle of RH Nimbyism – start from the premise that I want things to remain exactly the same as the day I got here:
1. Ikea proposed
Nimby response – too much traffic, destroys neighborhood brings pollution, destroys the industrial base of RH and replaces good jobs with cheap jobs.
Nimby action – frivolous lawsuits, rable rousing public hearings, scare tactic publicity 9sounds like the healthcare debate)
2. Ikea Built –
Broader community response= hey this is pretty good, good transport, no traffic issues, beautiful park and cheap meatballs!
Nimby response – (rather than admit they were WRONG) they still say no Ikea stinks, neighborhood destroyed, too much traffic, ugly, mallification of RH, park is inaccessible and surrounded by store parking, lost cherished dry dock
3. Concrete Plant proposed
Nimby response – too much traffic, destroys our beloved Ikea waterfront park, too industrial for residential neighborhood
Lesson – NIMBYs – are generally selfish hypocritical pricks, who are against EVERYTHING – they should be virtually ignored