No Remediate Satisfaction Anytime Soon For Greenpoint

In case you thought Newtown Creek might lose its lustre:

A new study of the nation’s largest oil spill — at Newtown Creek on the Brooklyn-Queens border — found it’s much larger that originally anticipated, is being cleaned up too slowly and raises serious questions about area residents’ health risks.

The ExxonMobil spill, which happened in 1950 along the 31/2-mile creek, may be as large as 30 million gallons of oil instead of earlier estimates of 17 million, according to a report released yesterday by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

The spill and ensuing cleanup efforts led to community outcry and many lawsuits.

The area hit hardest has been Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section. While 9 million gallons of oil have been removed by ExxonMobil, the EPA cautioned the recovery volume might be overestimated and oil unrelated to the spill is also polluting the creek.

“The ugly truth is that an estimated cleanup at this rate won’t be completed until 2026; the ugly truth is that homes in this area are without a doubt being impacted by this spill,” said Rep. Anthony Weiner, who addressed the study at a press conference at the site of a planned park along the creek on Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint.

Greenmarkets And Their Ooh-I’m-So-Righteous 150 Miles Are For Chumps And Suckers

When a Brooklyn man eats only what he farms in his own backyard, we discover that “eating locally,” ironically, can go too far:

In three weeks of eating nothing but Farm-fresh food, I lost 29 pounds, down from my pre-Farm weight of 234. Abs: That’s the upside of only two meals a day. The downside is the expense. Not counting my own labor, which was unending, I spent about $11,000 to produce what, all told, is barely enough to feed one grown man for a month. But I did learn something about food: Unless you really know what you’re doing, raising it is miserable, soul-crushing work. Eating food fresh from the farm, on the other hand, is delightful.

(Hey, no need to punish yourself!)

Zone, Zone, Zone Those Residences Fast!

An elegy for the Balloon Water Race Game. Long live the Balloon Water Race Game:

Astroland completed another season yesterday, but its flashy neon lights may never again brighten the boardwalk.

Last November, Carol and Jerome Albert, whose family has owned Astroland since it opened in 1962, sold the property for an undisclosed price to a developer, Thor Equities. The developer plans to erect a new park, hotel, restaurants and time-share units on 10 acres of land between West 10th and West 15th Streets and south of Surf Avenue in the Brooklyn neighborhood; Astroland occupies about one-third of that area.

The Cyclone, the wooden roller coaster, which is part of Astroland, has been an official city landmark since 1988 and therefore is not in danger of being destroyed for the project.

The project could be completed by 2011, but it cannot start until the city approves a zoning change, a process that is likely to be long and hotly contested, since many local residents are opposed to the construction of tall, high-density structures at the beachfront spot. Most of the area is now zoned for entertainment use.

City officials have also voiced concern about the proposal. Janel Patterson, a spokeswoman for the city’s Economic Development Corporation, said in an interview that “high-density residential is not appropriate for the core entertainment or amusement district.”

“The main goal of the rezoning would be to expand and improve the amusement district, while maintaining Coney Island’s iconic and unique nature,” Ms. Patterson added.

Ms. Albert said that her family paid $170,000 to lease the land this season, which began in April, and that they hoped to lease it again in 2008, but said that the developer wanted $3 million this time, a price she calls “way beyond what we could afford.”

“I don’t understand why they’re asking for so much, since there seems to be no reason in the rational world not to keep us there another year if they can’t do anything with the property until the zoning is changed,” Ms. Albert said. “We’re hoping for an 11th-hour change of heart, but as each day passes, our hopes grow dimmer.”

Posters taped to ticket booths and poles issued a plea to the developer: “Give Us One More Year.”

A spokesman for Thor Equities, Stefan Friedman, said: “Thor remains in negotiation to extend Astroland’s lease,” adding that “no matter the outcome of this negotiation, Thor is totally committed to having amusement and games in the neighborhood for years to come.”

Location Scout: Coney Island Amusement Core.

Culture Trolleys Crash And Burn Across The City

The culture trolley, unsuccessful in Queens, gets similar results in Brooklyn:

A trolley-styled shuttle bus that was conceived as a way of bringing tourists to Brooklyn’s cultural destinations is actually being mostly used by locals hitching a free ride, a new study has found — yet Borough President Markowitz is about to sink nearly half a million taxpayer dollars into keeping the “disappointing” system going.

Markowitz has allocated $475,000 to buy a new, fuel-efficient fake trolley to run its circular route, despite a report by the Center for the Urban Future that said the service functions mostly as “free transportation to go shopping or save [local residents] a walk across the park.”

Even the executive director of the agency that runs the trolley admits they’re a failure.

“If you talk to the trolley drivers, it’s the same lady and her three kids every Saturday at 3 pm and they’re going from ballet on the west side of the park to something else on the east side of the park,” said Ellen Salpeter, who runs Heart of Brooklyn, the privately and publicly funded community development group that operates the trolley.

. . .

Heart of Brooklyn is not the only local organization feeling let down by its trolley shuttle. The Brooklyn Children’s Museum ran a similar bus from Grand Army Plaza to its Crown Heights center until 2006, when museum leaders concluded that it wasn’t worth it.

Like the Heart of Brooklyn trolley, the museum’s shuttle had turned into a urban station wagon, used by families to travel to the park and nearby shops.

“The greatest benefit seems to have gone to Crown Heights residents who used the trolley to get to Grand Army Plaza and back,” [study author Tara] Colton wrote.

“Floating” Is The New “Black”

This Summer we’ve had floating pools, floating dramatic presentations, floating science barges and now floating opera:

The Mary A. Whalen, a 69-year-old retired tanker, used to deliver diesel, gas and kerosene up and down the Atlantic coast. The tanker — docked at Red Hook’s container port normally off-limits to the public — makes its grand debut this weekend as a cultural maritime center with the Brooklyn-based Vertical Player Repertory’s version of “Il Tabarro.”

The repertory had done a land-locked version of the Puccini opera about adultery, murder and the rough lives of waterfront workers, but wanted to do it again on the water. When it discovered the tanker run by the nonprofit PortSide NewYork, the two groups dove into the production.

“It was our idea all along to use the tanker for performances,” said Carolina Salguero, director of PortSide NewYork. “The concept is to become a waterfront hub” to bring the marine industry together with its inland neighbors.

. . .

Judith Barnes, Vertical Player Repertory’s executive director, enjoyed hearing stories from the stevedores, who will actually share the stage with the performers. The opera, originally set on a barge on Paris, is being transformed as Red Hook circa 1938 — the year the tanker was built.

“We really wanted to ground it — or perhaps I should say anchor it — with a connection to reality,” Barnes said. “The jury is still out on the acoustics. We’re not using amplification and have no band shell, but water is a great amplifier. So is the concrete pier, and the boat is metal, which is good. We have to contend with ambient noise and the elements.”

Despite the challenges, Barnes wants to do it again with other waterfront works. “This is truly bringing art to life.”

Location Scout: Gowanus Inlet.