The Winding Road To Shipping Port Reuse

22 January 2007 - 6:00am

The long and convoluted tale of the demise of a container port and the planned rebirth of a piece of Brooklyn waterfront.

"Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff wanted to replace Brooklyn's Red Hook port with cruise ships. And real-estate developers were gnawing at the edges, trying to convert onetime warehouses into market-rate condos with splendid views."

"But fierce reactions from neighbors and politicians who want to hold tightly to the “working waterfront” of Red Hook’s storied past spurred the city’s Economic Development Corporation to temper this condos-and-cruise-ship formula."

"So the E.D.C. has proposed a little bit of everything in the 150-acre waterfront that’s now going through a rezoning. The map that E.D.C. put forth in September of piers 7 through 12 shows a beer garden, restaurants, warehouses, a hotel with a conference center, offices, light industrial buildings, a marina, a boatyard, a hotel, art galleries and artist studios, retail shops, offices and something called a 'Dynamic Maritime Marketplace.'"

Source: The New York Observer, January 22, 2007
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Much like Victorian reformers of the 1890s, we find ourselves at a pivotal moment for urban reform. Rather than standardization, sanitation, and social order, cities are now looking to promote "livability" and "sustainability".