A planned floating East River bar off the Greenpoint shore will inundate the surrounding area with sloppy drunks who will trash Transmitter Park, peace-and-quiet-loving neighbors predict.
“They are going to drink at the barge and then come out and puke and piss in the park,” Rolf Carle said.
The entrepreneurs behind the Brooklyn Barge Bar pitched it to Community Board 1’s liquor committee in late February, and members demanded they come back on March 31 with more information and proof of permits from the Department of Environmental Conservation and the Army Corps of Engineers.
The partners have rented a strip of waterfront land near Transmitter Park from controversial real estate mogul Joshua Guttman and plan to build a gangway to a barge floating beside it, one said. The bar is set to sit on the vessel, and a restaurant serving grilled dishes is planned for the land. The establishment will lure people to the river who wouldn’t go otherwise, he said.
“You would be surprised at how many people have never gone down to the water,” Will Drawbridge said. “This will give them something to come down for.”
The owners plan for the business to be family-friendly during the day and adult-oriented at night, he said. Drawbridge’s view of Transmitter Park differs dramatically from local activists’ framing of it as a place under siege. He and his partners plan to build bathrooms and kayak storage there because the space needs more people using it, he said.
“Those things do not build revenue, but the Greenpoint waterfront is under-utilized, so we might as well use it,” Drawbridge said.
Drawbridge gained his outdoor grill chops as a long-time employee of the Flying Pan, a similar venture on a barge docked on the Hudson River in Manhattan.
