Going Coastal

When is something controversial when it really isn’t? Usually the answer is when something sounds controversial because it hasn’t been heard lately, but isn’t really news. This was the case last week when Chris Ward, executive director of the Port Authority, spoke before a large crowd at the Marriott Hotel in Brooklyn.

Ward is a Port of New York veteran, having been involved in both the public and private sectors of planning and management. Somewhere in my archives I have an old city report on New York Harbor, fascinating to read even now although so much is dated, that has Ward’s fingerprints all over it. He is a pro and the right guy to head up the Port Authority.

The Eagle’s Linda Collins was there at the second joint Brooklyn Chamber-Sovereign Bank “state of the business meeting” and heard what he said.

What Ward said that was not news but stirred the juices of some was when he asked the rhetorical question about the Brooklyn container port, “Is there we want our last working container port?” Of course it isn’t. Both the city and the Port Authority want it relocated to somewhere in Sunset Park. Its current location is a money loser, and it can never be profitable simply because it is too small and can never get bigger. So many other uses can be made of the four piers involved.

The emotional desire for some to hold on to the Columbia Street piers to keep the old days around is charming but impractical. A working Brooklyn waterfront does not mean the work has to be unloading cargo.

That kind of working waterfront should be located where the work makes sense as well as money. And when you’re talking about a an honest-to-God container port in Sunset Park, you have to also talk about an honest-to-God rail freight tunnel from New Jersey or Staten Island.

That it is simple to make sweeping conclusions about what should be done on parts of our waterfront underlies how tediously complex the planning process is.

The city, five years or so ago, was exactly right in its general conclusions about Piers 7 to 12. The facts that the city didn’t have enough pieces in hand — only the cruise line terminal; completely misunderstood the emotional sentiments associated with that space; and totally miscalculated the political prowess of the stevedores and the political help the union could call on, is why the issue is still undecided.

While some people seem surprised when somebody like Ward matter-of-factly says the container port shouldn’t be where it is relates to the almost boring current situation that whole area has become. Quite simply, if the city (or Port Authority) could have logically transferred the container port to Sunset Park, that would have been done. But it was faced with closing it or leaving it alone. It had no choice. As Ward would tell you, the last thing you want in trying to do new things, especially waterfront-related new things, is to have no choice.
By Dennis Holt

Brooklyn Daily Eagle