A Bronx councilman this week trashed Brooklyn as part of an attempt to
fight the mayor’s plan to build a new Jets football stadium on Manhattan’s
West Side.
Former state Attorney General G. Oliver Koppell, now a councilman from
Riverdale, wrote to Mayor Michael Bloomberg this week that while he was
pleased to hear about the plans for a new cruise ship port, “the
Brooklyn location is not a good one.”
“The big attraction of New York as a cruise ship destination is that
passengers can land right in the middle of Manhattan where tourists want
to be,” wrote Koppell.
“I am recommending … that the new cruise terminal be built on
the West Side of Manhattan on the site of the proposed football stadium,
not in Brooklyn, which is much less accessible, does not offer the same
tourist attractions, and might jeopardize the American Stevedoring shipping
company, the one remaining port operation, currently employing 500 workers,”
he wrote in the letter, which was distributed by the City Council press
office.
American Stevedoring International (ASI) has indicated as recently as
December that it could share Brooklyn’s working waterfront space
with the anticipated cruise lines, Norwegian and Carnival, which are expected
to dock at Pier 12 in Red Hook as early as this fall.
Spokesman Matthew Yates has told The Brooklyn Papers that ASI, which recently
renewed a three-year lease for Piers 7-10, isn’t afraid the cruises
will impinge upon their work.
“I don’t think it’s a threat,” he said in November.
“We’ll see what happens, but it’s a long way off.”
Still, such practicalities weren’t part of Koppell’s conviction
that “it is not desirable to locate at cruise terminal in Brooklyn,”
although “it is the preferred location for a football stadium”
since the borough “would not present the same problems of vehicular
traffic and population density as Manhattan’s West Side.”
Despite the tone of the letter, which at the same time as noting Manhattan’s
strengths depicted Brooklyn as an entertainment and cultural wasteland,
Kings County officials were slow to defend their borough’s honor.
Instead, they staunchly defended the cruise ship plan, taking Koppell’s
letter at face value.
Borough President Marty Markowitz, who might be expected to take a letter
like Koppell’s more than a little personally, handled the matter
in workmanlike fashion, saying through a spokeswoman, “I have been
seeking to bring the cruise industry to Brooklyn since before I was borough
president. I’m pleased that the mayor agrees that a Brooklyn home
best meets the needs of the cruise industry and that it will also support
Brooklyn tourism.”
Rep. Jerrold Nadler has for years fought to keep the stevedoring company
on the piers as other development proposals have come forth threatening
to dismantle a working waterfront in Red Hook.
Robert Gottheim, Nadler’s chief of staff, said that while the congressman
“has great respect and admiration for Councilman Koppell, he would
disagree, and he feels that the Brooklyn waterfront is an excellent spot
for both the cruise terminal and the continued operation of a containment
terminal in Red Hook.”
And if Councilman Koppell’s time on the consumer affairs and land
use committees give him credence to speak to the issue, downtown Councilman
David Yassky’s chairmanship of the waterfront committee gives him
a one-up on the Bronx bully.
“Councilman Yassky is behind a cruise ship terminal in Brooklyn,”
said Yassky spokesman Evan Thies, who added that the councilman remained
concerned, however, that the city’s cruise ship plan be carried out
with concern for the community.
“Now we have to think about how we’re going to develop that
industry,” said Thies. Asked about bringing the Jets to Red Hook
because of favorable traffic conditions, Thies found the notion unrealistic.
“You’re talking a couple hundred cars coming in once or twice
a week [with the cruise ships] as opposed to, like, 30,000, 40,000 cars
in the span of a couple of hours.”
He added that Yassky wanted to make sure Brooklyn kept good on its promise
to the cruise lines.
“We should do everything we can to keep that growing and lucrative
industry in New York,” Thies said.
A mayoral spokesman said Bloomberg had not yet seen the letter, adding
nevertheless, “It is too late in the process to be suggesting such
significant changes.”
Janel Patterson, a spokeswoman for the Economic Development Corporation,
the city agency charged with building and financing the terminals on the
Red Hook waterfront, laughed at the Koppell letter.
“The cruise industry is one of the fastest-growing segments in the
city,” she said. “The new cruise terminal will bring hundreds
of jobs to Brooklyn, and numerous elected officials support the new terminal.”
