Clash Over Plans for a Brooklyn Park

The way Marty Markowitz sees it, the rundown nine-acre park where Coney Island and Brighton Beach meet is ripe for a sparkling transformation.

Residents fear a planned 5,000-seat amphitheater would draw too many visitors and change the quiet character of the park.  (NY Times)

Plan to develop NYC waterfront clears final step

 A plan to revitalize a bleak stretch of land along Manhattan’s west side waterfront was approved Monday by the New York City Council, but the project remains without financing and it will likely be many years before any buildings go up.

Big Plans for Old Sugar Refinery Face Review

 In 2004, the Domino Sugar refinery that occupied five blocks along the Brooklyn waterfront in Williamsburg for more than 150 years shut down, joining the neighboring brick factories as remnants of the area’s industrial past.

Muck lurks in NASCAR sale

Buyer shelling out $80M reportedly plans to build up vast tract with harbor dredge

A Battery Park Bargain

AS two of the officials who helped carry out Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller’s 1967 mandate to build a Lower Manhattan community on landfill in the Hudson River, and considering the unquestionable success of what he proposed evident in today’s vibrant Battery Park City,

Future Dangers for a Maritime City

From its description Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront, a six-month research program being inaugurated early next month at the Museum of Modern Art, sounds like the kind of dry, somnolent workshop someone would dream up for a convention of civil engineers. Conceived to address the potential effects of rising water levels and apocalyptic storms on the city, the program is modeled on the principles of “soft infrastructure,” which proposes flexible ecological systems as an alternative to “hard” solutions like concrete dams and storm barriers.

Construction can move forward at former Spanish Camp

City OKs construction on all land except for that owned by builder who started process

Vision of a Riverfront Lined With Ferry Docks

The Hudson River may no longer be the major economic and transportation artery it once was, but it is a big river — beautiful in parts — that is home to commercial boats like ferries and barges as well as pleasure craft like sailboats and jet skis.

City to announce that 800 rental units will be built at Stapleton home port

A New Jersey company that developed the swank W Hotel and residences on the Hudson, the Trump Plaza in Jersey City and amenity-packed apartments on River Street in Hoboken, is in contract to buy part of the Stapleton homeport from the city to build 800 rental units there.

New York’s Coney Island in fight over renewal

Here’s an idea for cash-strapped New York City: Redevelop Coney Island – that oasis of fun for generations of city dwellers – and build up its tax base.

Creating a New Waterfront

Public housing of a certain era is often a good historical indicator of where the least desirable areas of New York used to be. And many of those areas were along the water.

Communities Drowned Out

Old tires. Invasive plants and rampant weeds. Mounds of garbage.

DEC: Careful review of Gowanus alternative needed

 The agency that initially requested the feds to include the Gowanus Canal in the Superfund program is now advising careful consideration of the city’s alternative clean-up plan.

Cleaning the Grit Off Long Island City

Long Island City is about to get a face-lift. The city and federal governments plan to pour more than $75 million into sprucing up this section of Queens, which sits directly across the East River from Midtown Manhattan.

How Mayor Bloomberg Is Killing Coney Island

For well over a century, Coney Island has been a canvas upon which amusement visionaries rendered vivid dreams in bold brushstrokes and garish colors — defining and redefining the way America entertains itself.

Developer: NY can’t renew Coney Island without him

Two New York City Council committees have voted in favor of a Coney Island renewal plan spearheaded by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Queens tennis players lament loss of Long Island City’s Tennisport

Finding “love” in Queens is getting harder.

The closing of Tennisport, a private club in Long Island City, on July 31 will make the already difficult task of finding court time in Queens even more tricky.

‘Whole’ lot of nothing as food megastore abandons Gowanus site

 Whole Foods has shelved its plans to open its first Brooklyn branch on Third Avenue near the Gowanus Canal, The Brooklyn Paper has learned.

The Education of Joe Sitt

The tone of a City Council hearing last week on Mayor Bloomberg’s major Coney Island redevelopment plans was music to Joe Sitt’s ears.

Expansion of Gantry Plaza State Park

The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, Queens West Development Corp., and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey today opened a new 6-acre portion of Gantry Plaza State Park, featuring a waterfront promenade along the East River, an open lawn, new athletic field and reconstructed cove and wetlands.