When the Carnival and Norwegian cruise lines begin to dock their mammoth
ships at a newly renovated Pier 12 in Red Hook later this year, several
thousand crew members will flood the shores of this small, industrial
and residential Brooklyn enclave.
There will be cooks and bartenders, tour guides and workout instructors,
among other cruise ship employees, and they’re going to have a few
precious hours of shore leave to shake out their sea legs. The majority
of these floating laborers will be young, many of them foreigners, but
every member of a ship’s sizeable crew is likely going to spend some
of their wages ashore on everything from snacks and CDs to new socks and
dinner.
And while elected officials have largely fawned over the revenues that
would be brought in by cruise passengers, Luis Ajamil, a consultant hired
the city’s Economic Development Corporation to study the new cruise
terminal, said at a Community Board 6 meeting in January, “The crew
is going to be your No. 1 customers.”
Each crewmember docked at the Pier 12 terminal could spend an average
of $112 during a five- to six-hour leave, according to a 2001 study published
by the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association. With city officials hoping
that three to four ships will eventually dock in Red Hook each week —
and taking into account that only half of a 900-member crew disembarks
at each port — the crews could spend $150,000 to $200,000 each week.
The question is whether any of that cash is going to stay in Red Hook,
or whether it will catch the B61 bus to Downtown Brooklyn and other more
populous neighborhoods or, more likely, trek to Manhattan. Already, cruise
line executives complain that the existing ports on Manhattan’s West
Side don’t offer the amenities that crews expect, and the ships’
young staffers take cabs into Midtown to get a bite to eat or stock up
on supplies.
Carnival Cruise Line spokeswoman Jennifer De La Cruz told The Brooklyn
Papers that the cruise companies may even decide to provide a shuttle
or some other type of expedited transportation into Manhattan.
That means that if Red Hook is going to cash in on any boom from the coming
of the cruise lines, civic leaders will need to spur more commercial development
and they’ll need to get the word out to crews disembarking at Pier
12 that there is plenty to do and plenty of places to shop, eat and drink
in Red Hook.
“It’s all about marketing the area and adding amenities wherever
possible,” said Phaedra Thomas, executive director of the Southwest
Brooklyn Industrial Development Corporation, who’s leading a separate
effort to encourage the cruise lines to buy their linen and food supplies
from local companies.
Kate Ascher, executive director of the EDC, who is overseeing the Red
Hook terminal project, joked at the January community board meeting that
the city should consider building a row of column-like palm trees that
would guide crew members to Van Brunt Street, where the faint commercial
pulse of Red Hook beats strongest.
Dave Lutz, a 35-year resident, said the city should at least think about
posting signs on Pier 12 alerting crew members to the fact that they are
only a few hundred yards from a cup of coffee, a bottle of wine or a freshly
baked muffin. Van Brunt Street, just a couple of blocks east of Pier 12,
already hosts two bars, three restaurants, a clothing boutique, numerous
little coffee shops, a couple of small groceries, a high-end bakery, a
specialty liquor store and several art galleries.
With or without the sign, Lutz, who is the executive director of the Neighborhood
Open Space Coalition, said he was thinking about launching a Red Hook
walking tour to highlight the neighborhood’s cultural riches, environmental
beauty and historic gems.
“I want to get people off the parking lot and off that ugly pier,”
he said of the cruise dock.
For those in a more contemplative mood, the Louis Valentino Jr. Park and
Pier offers a small patch of grass on the banks of Buttermilk Channel
and a pier from which to glean some of the most awe-inspiring views of
the Statue of Liberty and New York Harbor.
John McGettrick, who co-chairs the Red Hook Civic Association, suggested
that the city work with businesses to construct a sight-seeing trail that
would follow the Red Hook waterfront and then wind around to businesses
on Van Brunt Street.
“It’s critical that local businesses have the opportunity to
cater to the needs of not only the passengers, but the crew as well,”
McGettrick said.
It’s possible that a lot of these efforts will be undertaken by 50
local businesses that recently organized themselves into the Red Hook
Business Association. Led by Joe Bernardo, a co-owner of Hope and Anchor
restaurant on Van Brunt Street, the association wants to make sure Red
Hook business owners take full advantage of the new cruise terminal.
Bernardo and a handful of association members have met with EDC representatives
to explore what types of services and supplies the cruise ship crews are
expected to buy.
“We need to find out what they’re going to need,” Bernardo
said. “My hope as a business owner is that this generates more business.”
