Gowanus, the Superfund and the Evil of Today's New York

There is perhaps no better way of illustrating the utter wrongness of the way development issues are handled in today's New York than an examination of the Gowanus Superfund scandal that has been unfolding over the past two months. (Yes, it is a scandal.) It has been a pageant of mendacity, chicanery, greed and utter disregard for public welfare from the get-go, from the tactics of the developers The Toll Brothers to the behavior of politicians at nearly every level of City government, from Bloomberg on down.

To fill in those who are not aware (they can't be many, the issue has been given such press coverage), in April 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a proposal to list the long fetid and neglected Gowanus Canal on the Superfund National Priorities List. This might have been good news at another time, under another Mayor. But during the boom-boom development decade that has just recently died, the Toll Brothers decided the Gowanus Canal was like Venice or something, and whipped up a bizarre plan to erect a bunch of tall, luxury housing towers along the waterway.

Let it never be said the any New York developer ever came out on the side of the community. And, sure enough, the blindsided Tolls hated this idea. It would slow down (money) development! It would hinder (money) the rebirth of the area. And, you know, they said, the canal isn't really that dirty, when you think of it. (They actually went on the record with this position!) Plus, plus, plus, plus....we've got our own plan to clean up the canal! No, really we do. It's around here somewhere, just give us a minute. And it's so much better than the EPA's!

Bloomberg, suddenly hearing that one of his peeps (i.e., wealthy developers) was in peril, immediately came out against the clean-up. Again, the main concern was that the Toll Brothers would be negatively impacted. Lots of other pols came out against it, too, including the super-slimy Bill DeBlasio, who takes a bath in extra virgin olive oil every morning so as to render himself as slippery as possible. No surprise there, after the Tolls spent near half a mil on lobbying City Hall for the zoning change that gave them the ability to build on the canal. Nobody, meanwhile, seemed to be thinking about the communities of Gowanus, Boerum Hill and Carroll Gardens, and how the rejection of a free clean-up of a poisoned canal might effect them.

One of the first folks to come out in favor of the Superfund was Josh Skaller, one of the five candidates for the City Council seat that DeBlasio vacated. Skaller—who refuses to take money from developers, and is supported by The Carroll Gardens Coalition for Respectful Development (C.G. CORD) and the Friends and Residents of the Gowanus Canal (FROGG)—held a press conference at the Canal today to elucidate his position, and counter the campaign of misinformation that has clouded the issue.

And what misinformation! As Skaller pointed out, the Toll Brothers have hired the same environmental "expert" and the same high-priced public relations firm that Bruce Ratner employed when he was busy raping downtown Brooklyn for Atlantic Yards. They've been challenging the EPA's Superfund track record—while playing down the fact that the City has absolutely NO track record in large clean-ups. They promote the idea that the Toll Brothers are fully intent on cleaning the canal—while making no mention that the Tolls might not like the Superfund because its rules would require them, as one of the responsible parties involved, to chip in for part of the clean-up, whereas a plan they support might not cost them a single dime, simply because, well, when the EPA goes away, they might just forget to do it! (The City described the Superfund as "an adversarial process focused on enforcement and litigation." Don't you just hate law enforcement and people who sue you when you don't do the right thing?!)

There's also little explanation in the anti-Superfund camp of how or why Bloomberg suddenly whipped up a plan to fix the Gowanus after the Superfund showed up, whereas before that he seemed to be content with letting things be. As had every other Mayor—for decades! "Any cleanup plan proposed by the City would clean the canal to the same standards as Superfund," said the City. Funny, the timing, isn't it?

Take a look at the pictures of the canal on the nyc.gov site. They all look very pretty, don't they, no signs of sewage and refuse. Makes you want to live there. Then look at pictures on Pardon Me For Asking that are a tad more probing.

Recently, residents, including Katia Kelly of Pardon Me For Asking, started to notice anonymous, fear-mongering flyers being distributed around the neighborhood. We will be stigmatized!, they cried. The Feds will sue us to pay for the clean-up! It will take 20 years! The City can do it in two!

Only after extended negative exposure did the authors of this flyer actually sign their names to the screed of lies. Why, it was the Toll Brothers! Can you imagine? Plus dogged old Buddy and Debra Scotto, who can be counted on to be behind every bad and dishonest real estate idea along Court Street. (Poor old Buddy. He used to be a leading force in the area's rejuvenation, but now is just a shifty old nuisance who can't get around the idea that men with money don't always mean well.)

The Mayor's Office, meanwhile, showed how much it wanted to hear the people's voices on this urgent issue by scheduling "two meetings for the property and business owners who are adjacent to the Gowanus Canal to discuss the proposed listing and the City’s alternative plan." Problem is, he didn't notify any of them. Instead, the notification was sent to people in Fort Greene! The meetings, FYI, are on June 23 at 6 p.m. and June 24 at 6 p.m., and will be held at P.S. 32 at 317 Hoyt Street, near President.

The Brooklyn Paper, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, was there at today's press conference, and asked Skaller a few pointedly anti-Superfund questions, like "Do you think the government has a good record at clean-ups." But Marlene Donnelly, a founding member of FROGG, pretty much shut him up with a persuasive five-minute answer that reminded the reporter that the City has no record at cleaning anything up, took forever to come up with a plan, and that it is misleading to compare (as has been done) the tiny 1.8 mile long Gowanus Canal to the Superfund's efforts to clean a mighty river like the Hudson.

You know what this whole affair keeps reminding me of? That episode of "The Simpsons" where Montgomery Burns ran for Governor in order to prevent regulation of his nuclear plant. He was accused of polluting the area when a three-eyed fish was found in river downstream from the plant. Burns' campaign is only foiled when he's invited to a public dinner at the Simpson house and Marge surprises him by serving the three-eyed fish. Burns takes a bite, but spits it out, thus ending his campaign.

I might might believe the Toll Brothers and Bloomberg and DeBlasio more if they took a nice cooling swim in the "not that dirty" Gowanus.

[Picture courtesy of Pardon Me For Asking]

Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Donohue's Steak House?"

Add Donohue's Steak House to the cluster of timeworn treasures to be found around and about Lexington in the lower '60s. Along with Gino, Subway Inn and Le Veau d'Or, it's been a source of Upper West Side comfort for more than 50 years.

Who Goes There? Donohue's Steak House

The name of this sliver of an Upper East Side restaurant—which Smith & Wollensky could eat as a snack—is a bit of a misnomer. There’s steak on the menu, but it doesn’t play the dominant role as it does at most New York beef temples. Given just as much play are such dishes as calves liver, ham served “Hawaiian sytle,” various seafood dishes and burgers and “Roast Maryland Turkey.” (Someone please tell be why turkeys from Maryland are particularly prized.) It has always been thus, as a framed menu from 1950—the year of the Lexington Avenue eatery’s founding—attests. “The prices were right, then,” quipped my blond, Irish waitress as I took in the artifact.

Donohue’s makes more sense when thought of not as a steak house, but a traditional Irish bar with a small “Dining Room in Rear,” as the gold leaf in the front window reads. The long, beautiful, vaguely Art Deco bar dominates the front of the restaurant. Pass along it, and the seemingly hundreds of coat hooks on the opposite wall, to the end of the wood-paneled space and you find a snug grouping of ten black vinyl booths with bright red tablecloths. Low-set sconces barely illuminate the various paintings depicting maritime and French scenes (which is probably just as well). Specials are written on a chalkboard hung beside a working wooden phone booth.

Donohue’s patrons are “all neighborhood people,” according to my waitress. Some of the diners on a recent night could have been there when Martin Dononue opened his doors 59 years ago. An aged newspaperman endlessly regaled his captive companions with old tales of editors, city rooms, and politicians. One short, stout matron wore the biggest hat I have ever seen outside of a church or a funeral. Slim, tottering, ash-blonde ladies in black slacks walked in and out with stooped husbands in tweed jackets.

Who else ate here? Well, uh, how do I put this? The scourge of society.
Bernie Madoff was a fan of the ravioli, apparently, and a decent, but not spectacular tipper. Dennis Kozlowski and his wife bellied up to the bar after being convicted of raping Tyco of $400 mil. This is the Upper East Side, after all. (Donohue’s has a motto, by the way, which I doubt Madoff ever considered—"Generosa virtus nihil timet,” which means "Generous valour fears nothing.")

I expect Kozlowski was allowed to nurse his sorrows as long as he wished. There is no rush to flip tables here. Many diners who had finished their meals before I came in were still there when I left, twisting the stem of the same almost-emptied wine glass. I could have had my coffee cup warmed up until closing time and no one would have said a thing. And I might have, if not for having other plans for the night. Donohue’s is dangerously consoling to the jangled soul. It’s dim lighting and dark booths cradle you into a comforting quietude, a place where your boss or the bill collector or the evening news, or even the Federal Marshals, can’t get to you.
—Brooks of Sheffield

Suitcaseful of Flowers

A Good Sign: Office

Nice old fading painted sign, way down south on Smith Street, in Red Hook.

City Planning Approved Coney Island Plan Nobody Likes

Do Mike Bloomberg and Amanda Burden ever listen to anybody? Ever?

Yesterday, City Planning Commission yesterday approved—by a 12-0 margin—the rezoning plan that accompanies the City's plan for redeveloping Coney Island that is almost universally disliked, by everyone from Coney preservationists to the New York Times editorial board to disingenuous Coney mega-developer (destoyer) Joe Sitt. The former don't like it because it drastically decreases the amount of land devoted to amusements (down from 60 acres to a tiny 12), thus revoking Coney's historical character and reason for being.

Sitt doens't like it because, if put into effect, it takes away some of the land he's acquired with the supposed intent of developing the area. “The whole concept of the government taking over the site and building it … and then dealing with the state is mind-boggling,” Sitt told The Brooklyn Paper. (Welcome to the eminent domain era, Joe! How do you like it when it's the developer, not the small businessman or homeowner, who gets shafted?)

Bloomberg and Burden used the same smoke-screen argument they do to push through every rezoning and development plan they have ever wanted instituted: affordable housing units and construction jobs. "We cannot allow Coney Island’s decline to continue," said Bloomie, "and the opportunity to create 6,000 permanent jobs and 25,000 construction jobs in addition to 4,500 new housing units – 900 of them affordable to low and middle income families – cannot be passed up."

900 out of 4,500? Sound like a good ratio to you? And what happens when those temporary construction jobs are gone? We're stuck for life with a lousy new model for Coney. Trusting these two to rezone a New York neighborhood is like hiring a fox to plan a reorganization of your chicken coop.

The Tourist Mayor

An on-target editorial from the Daily News:

Mayor Bloomberg's priorities out of whack

By Patrice O'Shaughnessy

Years from now, people will look back in awe at the Alice's Wonderland that New York is becoming before our very eyes.

To build a billion-dollar major league ballpark, they took away Bronx parkland from kids.

Randalls Island is not for people in upper Manhattan and the South Bronx, but for elite private schools to use, because they pay for the privilege.

Ten years and $172 million went into building an elevated strip of park - the Highline - in Chelsea, which consists mostly of weeds poking through the ruins of railroad tracks. There are more dedicated park enforcement officers assigned there than to all of the Bronx, according to an advocacy group.

They shut down blocks of a major traffic artery in the heart of Manhattan so people can lounge in beach chairs on Broadway.

More and more, it feels like "Alice in Wonderland," but underlying the absurdity, it's like a tale of two cities, a story of the haves and the have-nots.

Geoffrey Croft, president of NYC Park Advocates, had another literary reference.

"The Emperor's New Clothes," he said of elected officials' unquestioning acquiescence to the Bloomberg administration steamroller.

"They are destroying much of our parks system," Croft said. "It's out of control."

Consider the parks that the city gave to the Yankees so it could erect the new stadium and massive parking garages.

Three years after construction of the new ballpark began, none of the permanent parks that the city promised to replace Macombs and Mullaly are there.

The Department of Parks and Recreation had promised that seven of the eight replacement parks would be done in time for opening day. The schedule was pushed back, and a report by the Independent Budget Office revealed that costs had ballooned from $116 million to close to $200 million.

But Croft predicted, "Taxpayers will pay close to $400 million to replace parks that the city should never have taken."

And Heritage Field, a public park with baseball and softball fields, to be built on the site of the old stadium's diamond, isn't expected to be ready until the autumn of 2011. The old stadium hasn't been torn down yet.

"It troubled me that they could knock Shea down before the first pitch at the new Stadium," said Sean Sullivan, principal and assistant baseball coach of All Hallows High School on 164th St.

"And here, we still have two stadia on 161st St."

His baseball team ended the season with a 2-16 record (most games were lost by one or two runs), due to the youth of the team, but it didn't help that there wasn't enough practice time, due to lack of a field.

The diamond they had always played on vanished with the rise of the new Yankee Stadium.

"It was difficult to play home games in Staten Island," said Sullivan. "It was bizarre.

"We had an interim park for practice at 161st St. and Jerome Ave., but everyone was there. People were driving golf balls," said Sullivan.

"But now, that's been ripped up," he added.

Croft said he watched two weeks ago as that park was destroyed to make way for a five-story parking garage.

"Seventy percent of the mature trees in Macombs and Mullaly parks were destroyed," Croft lamented.

Maybe the kids in the Bronx should head on down to Times Square with balls and bats and play right there in the street.

Broadway is now closed for five blocks running through the Crossroads of the World.

The reasoning was to ease midtown traffic congestion. (It took me just 25 minutes to get from 12th Ave. to Sixth during the first week of the plan!)

But the real reason is to keep the tourists happy.

It's great that people from across the nation and the globe want to visit New York.

But do we really need to inconvenience people who live and work in the city?

Yes, the out-of-towners need to plop down and sprawl out after all the stress of seeing "Mamma Mia!" They are exhausted from all the New York things they've experienced, like visiting the Hard Rock Café, and shopping at The Gap.

They need a place to relax.

How about Central Park? Or the Highline? Or any of the other green gems throughout the city?

But don't look for a shady place to stop near 161st St. You can go to the new mall at the ballpark, though, with Applebee's, Babies R Us and Bed, Bath & Beyond.

Yes, 10 years from now, we'll be looking back at former Mayor Bloomberg's absurd remaking of a city of unique character to one big homogenized mall, where the tourists feel right at home because it is exactly the same as their hometown.

Oh, wait. Bloomberg will probably still be in office, trying to close off E. Tremont Ave. to all but tourists in horse-drawn carriages.

I'll make a further prediction. In 10 years, we'll remember Mike Bloomberg as one of the worst mayors New York ever had.

Bloomberg Also a Petulent, Controlling Jerk When He Golfs

From the New York Times:

For Bloomberg, a Leisurely Pursuit or an Obsession

By MICHAEL BARBARO and DAVID W. CHEN

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is not much of a sports fan. In baseball-mad New York, he has a passion for neither local team, has famously called Joe Torre “Joe Torres,” and finds the Belmont Stakes — and many other sporting events he is required to attend — something of a bore.

But like many driven men in their seventh decade, he has settled on a pastime that now borders on obsession: golf. And he pursues the game with the same results-oriented approach he brought to business and politics: fixating on prevailing and unbothered by the cost.

The billionaire mayor has hired two golf pros to improve his swing. He has joined exclusive clubs in Bermuda, Maryland, Florida and New York. He purchased a digital simulator to measure the speed of his swing and the distance of his shot.

His security guards sometimes keep his golf clubs in the trunk of his city S.U.V. when Mr. Bloomberg marches in parades, so he can escape to the links afterward. And when the banking system collapsed last September, and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. needed to reach him on a Sunday, he was patched through to the SUBURBAN course where Mr. Bloomberg was playing.

As the mayor’s game improves, ever so incrementally, golf is finding its way into his conversations, public and private, as he invokes the sport as a metaphor for government and life.

(“He is obsessed with it,” said Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker and no golf lover.)

Mr. Bloomberg’s determination to master the sport, despite little natural talent for it, has proved a humbling chapter in an otherwise charmed life.

He took up the game around 2000, but “you probably wouldn’t want to call that golf, what he played,” said Daniel M. Donovan Jr., the Staten Island district attorney, who has played with Mr. Bloomberg for years.

“He was confused by it, actually,” said Morris Offit, a longtime friend and golf buddy of Mr. Bloomberg’s. “He felt that if he tried hard, gave it the appropriate attention and got good instruction, that he would improve rapidly.”

He did not.

Online records from those early days, recorded by the Metropolitan Golf Association, show that the mayor regularly shot over 100 — not exactly Tiger Woods territory.

Frustrated by his poor play, Mr. Bloomberg plunged himself into the game, becoming a regular at the Randalls Island driving range, and stealing away for weekend golf outings in Westchester, the Caribbean and the Hamptons, his security detail in tow.

And he often brings an instructor with him on the course. (One of them, Tom Sutter, commands $130 an hour.)

About a year ago, Joseph L. Bruno, then the majority leader of the New York Senate, invited Mr. Bloomberg to try a special driver designed to test a player’s swing. At the slightest mistake, the driver’s head swivels back and forth “like a wet noodle,” Mr. Bruno said.

When Mr. Bloomberg swung, “the thing flipped and flopped, and I could see he was getting pretty upset,” Mr. Bruno recalled.

Several weeks later, Mr. Bloomberg returned to Mr. Bruno’s office in Albany and demanded a second chance. He swung the club perfectly. “He must have gone out and bought a dozen of those things and swung them everywhere he went,” Mr. Bruno said.

Those who have played with the mayor said that, unlike some politicians who fail to tally errant shots, he is scrupulously honest on the course, counting every shot, no matter where it lands.

Mr. Bruno recalled playing with the mayor in Bermuda, where Mr. Bloomberg has a home. The mayor’s intensity kicked in when his ball landed on the edge of the woods.

“The ball looked unplayable,” Mr. Bruno recalled. “He didn’t have a clear swing. He had the right to move it a club’s length and take a one-stroke penalty. He insisted that he would hit it. It proved unplayable after a couple of swings. He was not a happy guy. The steam was coming right out of his ears.”

Aides to Mr. Bloomberg refuse to make public his handicap. The United States Golf Association listed it at 18, but that appears to be based on scores he posted when he was just starting to play (like the 121 he scored in 2002 at a country club at Purchase, N.Y.). Former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has a handicap of 17, according to the association, while his wife, Judith, has a handicap of 16.

Those who play with Mr. Bloomberg said the mayor, 67, who stands 5 feet 8 inches and appears fit, if not ripped, hits the ball straight but not especially far. He is a decent putter, but loudly scolds himself when he hits a bad shot — “Come on, Mike!”

These days, he still hits more bogeys than birdies, but Mr. Bloomberg now routinely shoots between 80 and 90, said those who play with him. “The improvement in his game is amazing,” said Mr. Donovan, who is scheduled to play with Mr. Bloomberg over the Fourth of July weekend.

Donald Trump, who has played with Mr. Bloomberg at the Trump National Golf Club at Briarcliff Manor in Westchester, said: “He’s got a wonderful golf swing. He hits its steady and straight. If he had more time to play, he’d be a terror.”

The game has proved a useful political tool for the mayor. He has schmoozed the head of the Staten Island Republican Party over a round of golf. And he flew Mr. Bruno and Sheldon Silver, the speaker of the State Assembly, to Bermuda for a weekend of golf and conversation.

Still, his unbridled fervor for a game associated with the country club set has occasionally landed him in hot water. During his weekly radio address in 2006, Mr. Bloomberg was asked to name a typical job performed by illegal immigrants. He immediately thought of golf.

“You and I are beneficiaries of these jobs,” the mayor told his co-host, John Gambling. “You and I both play golf. Who takes care of the greens and the fairways in your golf course?” The remarks drew howls of protests from immigration groups.

And at a civic meeting in Canarsie, a working-class section of Brooklyn, earlier this year, homeowners interrogated the mayor about rising taxes and living costs. At one point, Mr. Bloomberg asked how many golfers were in the audience — and the answer appeared to be zero.

In 2001, when he first ran for mayor, Mr. Bloomberg quit the Century Country Club in Purchase, which is predominately white. He maintains memberships at the Deepdale Golf Club in Manhasset, the Atlantic Golf Club in Bridgehampton, the Saint Andrews Golf Club in Hastings-on-Hudson and the Mid Ocean Club in Bermuda.

Speaking to reporters at a news conference on Wednesday, he described playing Bethpage on Long Island, where the United States Open begins on Thursday.

“It’s very long, it’s very hard, and that’s when it’s normal,” the mayor said. “What they do for these tournaments is they grow the fescue so tall that if you go in it, you almost never can find your ball. I think they have a 500-yard par four, which for me, to go 500 yards, is at least three shots, and that’s on a good day.”

He said he planned to catch some of the tournament on television, but will not attend himself.

“I’m a golfer. I’d like to play this weekend.”

Inside the McGovern-Weir Greenhouse

There are many old structures in the good old City, but among those edifices that just plain look incredibly old, I would have to nominate the McGovern-Weir greenhouse on the western border of Green-Wood Cemetery. (There used to be many greenhouses near the entrance of the cemetery, as you might guess.)

It was built by James Weir, Jr. (son of founding florist James Weir), in 1880, at the corner of 25th Street and Fifth Avenue. Architect Mercein Thomas designed the glass and wood building. Fifteen years later, Weir hired architect George Curtis Gillespie to enlarge the greenhouse. The sign at top was once visible from a long way off. Buildings were shorter then. Weir and his two sons, James E. and Edward, all lived on 25th Street near the greenhouse. Cozy.

It is the only Victorian-era greenhouse left standing in New York.

The Weirs owned the greenhouse until 1971, when they sold to the current owners (McGovern, I assume). I stepped foot in the place for the first time this past weekend. My God, the thing is ancient. (Does the Landmarks Commission prevent the owners from giving the building a new coat of paint?) In a world of steel, it's completely wooden structure comes as something of a shock. Reminded me of the Cyclone, somehow. The spiderweb pattern of the domed roof is awe-inspiring. The rusted, chipping windows are less so. They belong in a haunted house.


There's a building next door that was obviously once part of the greenhouse. The architectural style is the same and it appears to be of the same era. The windows are boarded up now. But there are some awfully curious, designs etched into the vertical timbered, once painted green.

Cobble Hill Resident Seriously Wants You to Curb Your Dob

These are just a sampling of the handmade signs that can now be found outside a house on Kane Street in Cobble Hill. Some are tied to a tree with string and packing tape. The question is: What degrades one's property more—dog feces or excessive ugly signage?

Chickens and Rams and Swordfish

This billboard, on Third Avenue and 21st Street in Brooklyn, is whacked and wonderful. A face-off between mammal and fowl and fish, with lots of action! The animals are all but leaping off the sign in agitation. Is this a sign for a zoo, a circus or a meat market?

Please note that you can also get "Turky" at the Alnoor Halal Live Poultry Market.