Happy Long Weekend, Columbia Street Waterfront!
In this issue:
- Family fun and learning at City of Forest` Day at Voorhees Park Playground!
- BMT and BQE "Central" on collision course - for (at least) the next 10 years!
- Illegal trucks continue their reign of chaos in our neighborhood!
- Our first ever Annual Meeting on Monday, November 16, is coming up quickly! Find out about our special guest, and how Columbia Street Waterfront residents, property owners, and businesses can join the Association and vote for our first elected Board of Directors!
Family fun and learning at City of Trees Day at Voorhees Park Playground!
On Saturday morning, October 3, over 40 adults and children gathered at the Van Voorhees Playground for over two hours of bulb planting and tree care. And we say bulb planting, we're talking 600 bulbs! Neighbors were equally dedicated caring for sixteen trees, pruning deadwood, raking the soil to aerate it, and spreading compost and mulch. Our Parks Department gardeners assisted by cutting out truly massive amounts of mulberry weed - thank you so much! And thanks to all the neighbors who joined together on a perfect fall morning to give the playground an all-natural makeover! CSWA is proud to have co-hosted this event with Cobble Hill Association, and we look forward to more collaborations. And now we can't wait to watch for the flowers in the spring!
Here's Cobble Hill Tree Fund's Instagram post with a wonderful video of the morning.
Two Meetings last week make it crystal clear - the Brooklyn Marine Terminal redevelopment and the BQE "Central" projects are on a collision course, with our neighborhood caught between
On Tuesday night, it was DOT's BQE Virtual Q&A, where concerned residents of Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Columbia Street Waterfront, and neighboring communities heard this presentation and had the opportunity to ask questions. And as you can imagine, people had questions.
Less than 24 hours later, the EDC (Economic Development Corporation) held the seventh BMT Advisory Task Force meeting, revisiting BMT North, the EDC's Vision Plan's proposed 3,800-unit development west of Columbia St between Degraw and Atlantic. There was no mention of the BQE Central plan discussed before, and no DOT representative to answer ATF members' questions about the overlapping, or rather, colliding projects.
The presentation is filled with pretty pictures, all footnoted with "FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES ONLY. Conceptual renderings show buildings allowed under General Project Plan (GPP) for illustrative purposes only; no site has a proposed design. Street, greenway, port, vessel, and open space designs are also conceptual." Meanwhile, none of these represent the "reasonable worst-case development scenario (RWCDS)" illustrated in the NYCEDC BMT Environmental Review-DSOW:
Sharon Gordon, one of our CSWA representatives to the BMT ATF, requested renderings based on the worst-case scenario. Bahij Chancey, from WXY - one of the consulting firms hired by EDC - replied: "It's a really interesting design prompt to ask us to design the worst possible district we can within the rules. I will see what we can do." Bahij and team, we are happy to direct you to the NYCEDC BMT DSOW and the diagram above (Figure 7, between pp 7 and 8) for your prompt.
You can watch the recording from last Wednesday's ATF meeting here. Scroll down the page to Recordings.
Julie Holstein, in her always excellent WARD 6 newsletter, covers these two meetings superbly in this week's post Are we looking at 15 years of construction? She includes the revelation at the DOT meeting of the fact there are FOUR construction projects which could happen at the same time in the same general area. Read Julie's post to find out more, and don't forget to subscribe while you are there!
Here's info about the next round of meetings:
DOT BQE Virtual Q&A #2
Date: Thursday, October 22, 2026
Time: 11 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Registration: Meeting Registration 10-22-2026 - Zoom
BMT ATF Meeting #8:
Date: Wednesday, October 21, 2026
Time: 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Zoom link: Join from Zoom Workplace app - Zoom
Illegal trucks continue their reign of chaos in our neighborhood!
As Wednesday's BMT ATF meeting began, we had this real-time example of a much-too-large truck causing havoc on our local streets. This time a massive truck blocked traffic on Hicks and Kane:
CSWA has been raising these incidents with our electeds, including Senator Andrew Gounardes and Councilmember Shahana Hanif, as well as with the 76th Precinct. We continue to stress that trucks driving illegally on our streets are a severe problem which can only get worse with the immense construction looming in the near future.
CSWA's first ever Annual Meeting is less than six weeks away!
As previously announced, the Columbia Street Waterfront Association’s first Annual Meeting will be Monday, November 16, 6:30-8:30 PM, at Cabrini Hall, Sacred Hearts and St. Stephen Church! At the Annual Meeting, Individual and Business Members will elect officers and directors, and vote on updates to our bylaws. We’ll have updates from our committees on all that’s been achieved since we first came together last May. Plus, we will be honoring Congresswoman (and CSW resident!) Nydia Velázquez for her many years of service to our community! So don't miss it!
And, if you live, own property, or operate a business in the Columbia Street Waterfront District, be sure to join as an Individual or Business member, so you can vote at our Annual Meeting! Go to our Membership and Support page to find out how!
Of course, anyone from any neighborhood can join CSWA as an Affiliate Member - check out the Membership and Support page for more details.
Questions? Email us at admin@columbiastreetwaterfront.org. Also, please share our website with your friends and neighbors: https://columbiastreetwaterfront.org/, where they can sign up for our newsletter!
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Media Contact:
Randy Gordon, President
Columbia Street Waterfront Association, Inc.
Phone: 917-593-2674
Email: admin@columbiastreetwaterfront.org