a reblog covering NYC’s sustainability scene
Jul 22nd, 2008 by Jervey
A great piece about the inaugural Williamsburg Walks car-free day of glory on Bedford Avenue, put together by Clarence Eckerson at Streetfilms (it’s getting harder to remember a NYC livable streets movement without their blessed souls). Every week it feels like our city is changing into something even greater.
Next Saturday will again be car free. Enjoy it.
Jul 18th, 2008 by Jervey
Apparently SF is a little bit better to walk around. We’d disagree, but it’s tough to argue with this sort of cartography?
Streetsblog, of course, has something to say about this as well.
They just came out with a souped-up new version that is very cool yet somehow manages to rank San Francisco the #1 most walkable city in the U.S. and New York City #2. Is Eastern Queens really dragging us down that badly? Doesn’t pretty much everyone have a car in the Bay Area? Of the 138 “Walker’s Paradises” (neighborhoods with a Walk Score of 90 or higher) 38 can be found in New York.
Jul 17th, 2008 by Jervey
For anyone who spends any time on a bike in this town, this video will summon familiar feelings of outrage.
Bike-Lane Emergency from Nicholas Whitaker on Vimeo.
Jul 16th, 2008 by Jervey
Tonight! A GreenHomeNYC forum:
July Green Building Forum: Delivering on the Promise of Green Collar Jobs: Challenges & Opportunities
When: Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Time: 6:30pm - 8pm
Where: Pratt Manhattan
144 W 14th St., Rm. 213 (see below for map)
RSVP@GreenHomeNYC.org
Speakers: Kris Reed, Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation (Moderator); Emmaia Gelman, Center for Working Families;
Rob Crauderueff, Policy Director of Sustainable South Bronx
Kristine Reed is Director of the Initiative for a Competitive Brooklyn, within the Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation. BEDC, founded in 1979, focuses on neighborhood and business support to create and sustain living wage jobs for Brooklyn residents; the Initiative for a Competitive Brooklyn identifies specific industry segments with special potential to grow and thrive over the next 5-7 years. She joined BEDC in 2006 after 25 years in financial services, both on staff and freelancing, with a specialty in marketing and product management with Citibank, Chase, and Mellon among others. A graduate of Barnard College, she and her family are long time Brooklyn residents
Emmaia Gelman has worked on housing, queer rights and other democracy issues in New York, Palestine and Ireland over the last 15 years. She is currently Senior Policy Organizer at the Center for Working Families, focusing on scaling up New York State’s green economy with mass residential retrofits, green job ladders and tenant affordability safeguards. Her work includes bringing together labor, housing, environmental and community workforce groups to generate greening policy plans.
Rob Crauderueff oversees the political advocacy component of SSBx that focuses on creating equitable and effective land use, economic development, and environmental policies. Rob co-founded and chairs the Policy Committee of Storm Water Infrastructure Matters (S.W.I.M.), a coalition comprised of over 50 organizations citywide that advocates for swimmable waterways throughout NYC through green, cost-effective solutions. S.W.I.M. was instrumental in New York City Council’s passage of Local Law 5, which mandates the city to create a Sustainable Storm Water Management Plan that includes green-collar job training & development. He also spearheaded S.W.I.M.’s successful effort to pass a green roof tax abatment for property owners in New York City. Rob earned a degree in Urban Studies from Columbia University, where he worked for the Columbia Earth Institute. He also performed a program analysis of sustainability initiatives in the “ecological and healthy” city of Loja, Ecuador, voted the 3rd most ecological city in the world by the United Nations.
Please RSVP by email to: rsvp@greenhomenyc.org
This event is hosted and co-sponsored by Pratt Institute.
Jul 15th, 2008 by Jervey
We’ve covered Dr. Despommier’s vertical farm concept before, but today the Times gets into it:
…what if skyscrapers grew off the grid, as verdant, self-sustaining towers where city slickers cultivated their own food?
Dickson Despommier, a professor of public health at Columbia University, hopes to make these zucchini-in-the-sky visions a reality. Dr. Despommier’s pet project is the “vertical farm,” a concept he created in 1999 with graduate students in his class on medical ecology, the study of how the environment and human health interact.
The idea, which has captured the imagination of several architects in the United States and Europe in the past several years, just caught the eye of another big city dreamer: Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president.
[get the rest here]
And the slideshow is awesome too, with images like this one:
Jul 14th, 2008 by Jervey
[Image by flickr user mercurialn]
While we’re on the subject of stink, here’s some news about Newtown Creek.
From the Times:
Newtown Creek, the polluted estuary that separates Queens and Brooklyn, should be named a federal Superfund site, a move that could hasten long-stuttering cleanup efforts, a pair of New York lawmakers say.
Representatives Anthony D. Weiner and Nydia M. Velázquez, whose Congressional districts include the contaminated area, are urging the Environmental Protection Agency to test the area for inclusion in the Superfund program. If the tests turn up a significant level of chemicals and other hazardous waste, the site could be eligible for millions of dollars in federal assistance. A Superfund designation would also allow the agency to go after the companies responsible for the contamination.
[read the rest]
Jul 14th, 2008 by Jervey
South Bronx residents have apparently had enough of the noxious fumes filling their neighborhood. Ten residents along with Mothers on the Move (MOM), a local environmental justice group, have called in the help of NRDC to bring a lawsuit against the companies that operate the nearby sewage and fertilizer factories. We hope they get rid of the stench.
The NRDC press release:
Stench from South Bronx Sewage Plants Targeted in Lawsuit by NRDC, Community Group, and Residents
Upgrades Would Stop Noxious Odors in One of Nation’s Poorest Neighborhoods
NEW YORK (July 9, 2008) – Foul smells from the Hunts Point sewage plant and a nearby human waste and biosolids fertilizer facility are the target of a nuisance lawsuit filed today by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) on behalf Mothers on the Move (MOM), a community-based environmental justice organization, and ten South Bronx residents. The Hunts Point area is one of the poorest Congressional districts in the nation.
The stench emanating from the two facilities could be controlled with operating and/or capital improvements, according to the lawsuit, which names the New York Organic Fertilizer Company (NYOFCo), the two companies that own it (Synagro Technologies Inc. and The Carlyle Group), the City of New York and its Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).
“This neighborhood has been treated like a dumping ground for too long,” said Albert Huang, NRDC attorney. “The court papers allege that the defendants are not taking reasonable steps available today that would prevent this overwhelming stench from degrading residents’ quality of life and health.”
[More after the jump.]
Jul 12th, 2008 by Jervey
Too much piling up on the backlog. Time to digest it all. Highlights from an undercovered couple of days.
Jul 12th, 2008 by Jervey
Truly amazing development on the fabric of NYC’s streets. Two lanes of Broadway to be rededicated to a pedestrian plaza and a bike lane. From the Times:
In a surprising reshaping of the urban landscape, the city is creating a public esplanade along a portion of one of its most prominent streets, Broadway in Midtown, setting aside the east side of the roadway for a bicycle lane and a pedestrian walkway with cafe tables, chairs, umbrellas and flower-filled planters.
The esplanade, which the city is calling Broadway Boulevard, will run from 42nd Street to Herald Square. Scheduled to open in mid-August, it will change that section of Broadway from a four-lane to a two-lane street…
Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said that the esplanade, which was designed with the help of Jan Gehl, a well-known urban designer based in Copenhagen who has been hired as a consultant by the city, was part of a larger program to turn underused street space into public plazas in each of the city’s 59 community board districts.
“Broadway is not famous because there are a gazillion cars going through it,” she said. “We’re trying to have the public space match the name. It’s a really important signal of how we can transform the streets of New York,” she added.
Meanwhile, Streetsblog has an interesting take on the semantics the Times uses to tell the story.
Take the headline on today’s Broadway Boulevard piece*: “Closing on Broadway: Two Traffic Lanes.” Why not “Opening on Broadway: More Sidewalk Space”?
They get into it here.
Jul 11th, 2008 by Jervey
Still out of town, but wanted to remind folks with the spare moments we’ve got. More later tonight.
From NY Loves Mountains:
NY Loves Mountains Weekend, Fri. July 11 ? Sat. July 12
Co-sponsored by Sierra Club NYC, Neighborhood Energy Network, Canary Adventure Society, Fractured Atlas, Rice NY.Music for the Mountains Benefit Concert, Fri. July 11, 7 PM
Benefit to save Marsh Fork Elementary School, Sundial, West Virginia.
The Jalopy Theater, 315 Columbia Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn
Pre-concert reception, 7 PM, with Rory McIlmoil of Coal River Mountain Watch, JW Randolph of Appalachian Voices, Brooklyn-based photojournalist Antrim Caskey, and Ed Wiley of Pennies of Promise. Silent auction featuring original art, jewelry & crafts from NYC and Appalachia; raffle items from NY-based businesses & artists. Music starts at 9 PM featuring: Here?s to the Long Haul, Andrea Reising, The IEDs, Cari Norris, Sam & Karen Duffy, and Supermajor. Reception and concert $65 / $75 at the door. Concert only, $15 / $20 at the door. Produced by Headwater Productions of Brooklyn and Canary Adventure Society.Oppose Mountaintop Removal and Coal Mining - Union Square, Sat. July 12, 11 AM ? 5 PM
Rally support for a clean energy future. Sign letters to sign, enjoy street music and theatre, hear Appalachian and NYC activists.Workshop reading of new play, Sat. July 12, 7 PM
Current Changes in Empire, a new play by Sarah Moon about mountain top removal and electricity, workshop reading of Act 1. $10 suggested donation. The Actors Institute, 50 West 30th Street, 14th floor, NY, NY 10001NY Loves Mountains was created to educate New Yorkers about our connection to the devastation of one of America?s greatest natural resources, the Appalachian Mountains, by a form of coal mining called Mountain Top Removal (MTR). They hope to ban NY State purchase of MTR coal from Central Appalachia and replace that coal-generated energy with clean alternatives available to us through wind and solar power, bring a clean energy economy to the communities of Appalachia, and to build a strong renewable energy infrastructure in New York. Contact Stephanie Pistello, Canary Adventure Society, spistello@gmail.com. Visit www.nylovesmountains.com
This is a reblog covering NYC's sustainability scene. It is edited/curated/sometimes written by Ben Jervey and is designed/maintained by Naveen Selvadurai. Read more here.
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